about

I am an AI & law researcher and a tech & corporate lawyer. Previously at A&O Shearman, currently at the Institute for Law and AI. I care about choosing the right sacrifices, making technology go well, understanding and stewarding the nature of law, and improving human experience.

I grew up in NZ. I’ve always lived by the sea. I can ordinarily be found trying to spin some kind of elaborate yarn.

Currently interested in:

• The proper functioning and alignment of the body, and how to become a virtuoso of movement. Have spent a lot of time thinking about the shoulder. Moving to the hip soon.
• Gerald Murnane. Still in the thrall of The Plains.
• What is legal reasoning? Can we convey the vibe of lawyering to a machine?
• Time signatures, tempo, and how it is that Adrianne Lenker can play two rhythms on guitar with one hand (and how it is that I could get there myself).

selected publications

AI

• coauthor on Law-Following AI: Designing AI Agents to Obey Human Laws – forthcoming Fordham Law Review (2025) paper

Law

• A Rose by Any Other Name: an Australian court rules that AI can be an inventor – A&O Shearman (2021) article
• The Promise of Law: Essays Marking the Retirement of Dame Sian Elias as Chief Justice of New Zealand – Auckland University Law Review (2019) book review [commissioned]

Crypto

• A Phenomenology of Protocols – Summer of Protocols (Ethereum Foundation) (2024) essay

Literary

• Rojak – Kill Your Darlings (2020) essay
• Return to Places Unknown – The Pantograph Punch (2019), republished in New Asian Voices eds. Alison Wong and Paula Green (2021) Auckland University Press essay
• Homecoming – Proudly Asian Theatre (2019) play
• Micro-chapbook: Late Summer – Ghost City Press (2018) poetry
• Bodies in the Land – awarded second place in Landfall’s Charles Brasch Young Writers’ Essay Competition (2018) essay
• Greenhouse – Starling Magazine (2017) poetry

elsewhere

🐦 Twitter
📚 Goodreads
🎥 Letterboxd