The AI-Powered Litigator: Real Tools, Real Cases, Real Results

Christopher A. Suarez | Steptoe LLP

Christopher A. Suarez is a member of Steptoe LLP’s Intellectual Property practice and co-head of the firm’s interdisciplinary AI, Data, and Digital working group. An intellectual property litigator, he concentrates on patent, copyright, and trade secret trials and appeals at every level of the federal court system—from district courts through the US Courts of Appeals to the US Supreme Court—as well as before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and other administrative tribunals. He represents both plaintiffs and defendants in high-stakes IP disputes and counsels clients at the intersection of intellectual property and emerging technology, particularly artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things.

• Education & Credentials

Suarez earned his J.D. from Yale Law School in 2011, where he served as Executive Editor of the Yale Law and Policy Review, was a Thurman Arnold Prize finalist in the Morris Tyler Moot Court of Appeals, and received the Stephen J. Massey Prize. He holds an M.A.T. from Dominican University (2008) and an S.B. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2006), where he was elected to Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu. He is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, Illinois, and Virginia, and before numerous federal district and appellate courts, the US Supreme Court, and the US Patent & Trademark Office. He clerked for the Hon. Timothy B. Dyk of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (2012–2013) and the Hon. Joan B. Gottschall of the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (2011–2012). Suarez is a certified AI Governance Professional (AIGP) and a CIPP/US-certified privacy attorney.

• Recognition & Leadership

Suarez is recognized in IAM Patent 1000 for litigation in the DC Metro Area (2025) and received the Hispanic National Bar Association’s HNBA/VIA Top Lawyers Under 40 Award (2023). He was named a Super Lawyers “Rising Star” in intellectual property from 2017 to 2022, received the American Inns of Court Warren E. Burger Writing Prize (2020), was named to the ABA’s On The Rise Top 40 Young Lawyers List (2018), and served as an ABA Intellectual Property Section Young Lawyer Fellow (2016–2019). He currently serves as Secretary of the American Bar Association’s Science and Technology Law Section.

• Professional Involvement

Suarez holds leadership roles across the IP bar, including in the Giles S. Rich American Inn of Court, the Federal Circuit Bar Association, the Intellectual Property Owners Association, and the American Intellectual Property Law Association. He is active in the Hispanic National Bar Association, the Sedona Conference, the American Bar Foundation, and the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD Pathfinders, 2022). At Steptoe, he serves on the Diversity and Inclusion Committee and has led the firm’s Latin American Lawyers Affinity Group. He is a prolific speaker and author, having chaired PLI’s annual program on the convergence of AI and intellectual property and presented before the ABA, the Federal Circuit Bar Association, and numerous industry and bar organizations. He co-edited two ABA treatises: Artificial Intelligence: Legal Issues, Policy, and Practical Strategies (2024) and The Internet of Things: Legal Issues, Policy, and Practical Strategies (2019).

• Experience

Suarez’s litigation experience spans all phases of district court practice, including fact discovery, fact and expert depositions, dispositive motions, claim construction, witness examination at trial, and appeals. He was part of the trial team that secured a $40 million jury verdict for Express Mobile against Shopify, with the jury finding all asserted claims infringed and valid. He defended Sercomm Corporation against Atlas Global Technologies in a Wi-Fi 6 standard-essential-patent dispute, securing a favorable pre-trial outcome, and has represented clients including American Axle, Panduit, and Corrigent Corporation in Federal Circuit appeals and PTAB proceedings. He frequently serves as embedded appellate counsel, identifying appellate issues and providing an outside perspective during ongoing litigation. Beyond the courtroom, Suarez advises clients on AI governance and product counseling—assessing privacy, IP, cybersecurity, and discrimination risks in AI models and training data—and on patent and software licensing, including standards-essential patents in wireless technologies (3G, 4G, 5G, Wi-Fi, and audio/video codecs) and open source software licenses. He maintains an active pro bono practice representing criminal defendants before the Fourth Circuit, students under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and federal employees in discrimination, civil service, and whistleblower matters. A former elected official and public school board member, he has served on nonprofit boards in Washington, DC, and Northern Virginia.

Paul R. Kiesel | Kiesel Law LLP

Paul R. Kiesel is a partner at Kiesel Law LLP in Beverly Hills, where he represents consumers in personal injury, class action, environmental, and toxic tort litigation. Repeatedly recognized as one of the top plaintiff attorneys in California and nationally, he has served as lead, liaison, or co-lead counsel in many of the largest mass tort and complex coordinated proceedings in the state, securing recoveries that include a $1.8 billion settlement in the Porter Ranch environmental litigation and a $200 million resolution following the Chatsworth Metrolink collision.

• Education & Credentials

Kiesel earned his Juris Doctorate with Distinction from Whittier College School of Law in 1985, where he was named to the Dean’s List from 1982 to 1985 and served on Law Review. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science / United States Government from Connecticut College (1982). In 2005, Whittier Law School awarded him an Honorary Doctorate of Law. He is admitted to the state courts of California and New York, the courts of the District of Columbia, and the United States District Courts for the Central, Northern, Southern, and Eastern Districts of California. He holds an AV Peer Review Rating (the highest rating) from Martindale-Hubbell.

• Recognition & Leadership

Kiesel’s honors include selection by the Los Angeles Business Journal as one of the Top 50 Trial Lawyers, recognition by the Daily Journal as one of the 100 Most Influential Attorneys in California, and inclusion in Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Lawyers in America (2009–2011). He has been named a Los Angeles Magazine Super Lawyer since 2001 and among the Top 100 Super Lawyers in Southern California since 2010. He received the Judicial Council of California’s Chief Justice Award for Exemplary Service and Leadership and the Stanley Mosk Defender of Justice Award (both 2014), the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles Presidential Award (1991), and the Consumer Attorneys of California Presidential Award of Merit (1993). Whittier College School of Law named him Alumnus of the Year (1994). The ABA Journal has recognized him among America’s “12 Techiest Lawyers” since 2013. He was named a Senior Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America, an honorary society limited to less than one-half of one percent of American lawyers.

• Professional Involvement

Kiesel served as President of the Los Angeles County Bar Association (2015–2016) and previously chaired its Litigation Section. He was appointed by former Chief Justice Ronald George to the California Judicial Council’s Civil and Small Claims Advisory Committee and has served on several Judicial Council subcommittees, including as Chair of the Minimum Mediator Qualifications Subcommittee (2007–2011). He sat on the Board of Governors of both the Consumer Attorneys of California and the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles for more than 25 years and was elected an emeritus lifetime board member of each. He co-chairs the California Open Courts Coalition, a bipartisan group advocating full funding of the state’s civil justice system, and previously served on the Board of Governors of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers. Governor Gray Davis appointed him to the California Employment Training Panel in 2003. A frequent continuing legal education presenter, Kiesel has delivered more than 200 CLE presentations and has guest lectured at Harvard Law School and the USC Gould School of Law. An early adopter of legal technology, he co-authored the LexisNexis treatises California Pretrial Civil Procedure and California Civil Discovery.

• Experience

Kiesel has practiced in Beverly Hills since 1985, becoming a partner at Kiesel Law LLP and its predecessor firms over a career spanning four decades. He concentrates on complex litigation involving environmental, construction defect, product defect, and pharmaceutical claims. He served as national Lead Counsel in the federal Avandia multidistrict litigation against GlaxoSmithKline, which encompassed more than 20,000 personal injury cases, and as Liaison Counsel in the Chatsworth Metrolink litigation, coordinating a $200 million resolution—the maximum recovery permitted by law. He was Liaison Counsel in the Porter Ranch environmental matter affecting more than 38,000 individuals, resolved in 2022 for $1.8 billion, and is Co-Lead Plaintiffs’ Counsel in the JUUL Labs Product Cases. His other significant engagements include serving as Lead Plaintiffs’ Liaison Counsel in the Clergy Cases (settlements totaling approximately $1 billion), Liaison Counsel in the In re Facebook Internet Tracking Litigation ($90 million preliminary settlement for roughly 124 million users), and Trial Counsel for a certified class of more than 260,000 Toyota Camry owners. He also represented former Governor Gray Davis in a challenge to the qualification of the 2003 California recall election.

Jeffrey A. Koncius | Kiesel Law LLP

Jeffrey Koncius is a partner at Kiesel Law LLP, where he concentrates on class actions, financial services litigation, and mass torts. A plaintiff-side civil litigator throughout his career, he has handled complex matters in federal and state courts and in arbitration across all phases of trial and appellate practice, representing consumers and individual investors against large corporations nationwide. He was again nominated as a Southern California Super Lawyer in 2025.

• Education & Credentials

Koncius earned his Juris Doctor from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in 1995, where he served as a member and Supervising Editor of the Cardozo Law Review. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Johns Hopkins University (1989). He is admitted to practice in California (1997), New York (1997), and New Jersey (1995), as well as before the US Courts of Appeals for the Third and Ninth Circuits and numerous federal district courts in California, New Jersey, and New York.

• Recognition & Leadership

Koncius has been recognized as a Southern California Super Lawyer, most recently nominated in 2025. He serves as Immediate Past President of the Federal Bar Association (Los Angeles) and sits on the Merit Selection Panel for the US District Court, Central District of California. His appellate work has produced numerous reported decisions, including Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. v. Superior Court, 29 Cal. App. 5th 243 (2018); Loeffler v. Target Corp., 58 Cal. 4th 1081 (2014); and Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. v. Superior Court, 40 Cal. 4th 360 (2007).

• Professional Involvement

Beyond his role with the Federal Bar Association, Koncius is a past Co-Chair of the Complex Courts Committee and an Executive Committee member of the Litigation Section at the Los Angeles County Bar Association. He serves on the Merit Selection Panel and the Nomination Committee for Selecting New Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference Lawyer Representatives for the Central District of California, and contributes to the PIABA Bar Journal committee of the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association. He is a member of the American Association for Justice, the California Indian Law Association, the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, and Consumer Attorneys of California. A frequent speaker and author, Koncius presents widely on class action practice, data privacy, and the ethical use of artificial intelligence in litigation, with engagements before the Federal Bar Association, Consumer Attorneys of California, PIABA, the American Bar Association, and others, and has authored articles for the Daily Journal.

• Experience

Koncius has built a national consumer class action practice representing plaintiffs against major corporations, and now applies the same focus to financial services litigation and mass torts. He represented recording artists, including The Temptations and The Motels, in class actions seeking digital download royalties from record labels such as Universal Music Group, Capitol EMI, and Warner Brothers, and represented the estates of Charles Bronson, Peter Sellers, and Richard Pryor in home video royalty claims against major studios—matters that produced settlements exceeding $51 million. His automotive defect work has targeted manufacturers including BMW (MINI Cooper timing chains), Toyota (HVAC systems), GM (braking), and Mazda (water pump failures). Representative results include Skeen v. BMW, a nationwide settlement providing refunds, free repairs, and an extended warranty averaging $1,300 per class member; a series of consumer electronics class actions against Samsung, Toshiba, and Pioneer valued at more than $100 million; and Tully v. AT&T, a $4.3 million recovery for more than 318,000 low-income consumers. He also litigates on behalf of individual investors harmed by their financial advisors, including a pending matter involving a $10 million-plus loss suffered by an Indian Tribe.

SESSION 1 – AI Applications in Discovery and Litigation | 1:00pm – 2:00pm

Apply AI across every litigation stage, from complaint through appeal, with emphasis on fact and expert discovery. Learn practical tools, effective prompting strategies, supervision obligations, and how to avoid the ethical pitfalls of AI-assisted litigation work.

BREAK | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

SESSION 2 – AI in Litigation: Tactics and Guardrails | 2:10pm – 3:10pm

Apply AI defensibly from pre-trial through trial, including discovery, motion practice, jury selection, and trial presentation. Master the ethical and evidentiary guardrails, supervision of AI outputs, and disclosure duties needed to maintain credibility before courts.