IAPP Will Certify Lawyers on AI, and the Board Is Already Staffed With Firm and Client Counsel

Early access is a paid circle

Alongside the cert, IAPP opened an AI Specialist in Legal Services Launch Supporters program. Organizations that join get early, discounted access to the training and exam materials, so their lawyers can learn the competencies before the credential is generally available. IAPP did not publish the price or the seat count in the announcement. The structure is the same one it has used on other specialist launches: a sponsor tier that sees the curriculum first, then a public exam.

That matters for a law department deciding whether to wait. Early access is how a firm or a corporate legal team gets its people through the material before clients start asking who on the matter is certified. It is also how IAPP fills the first cohort.

Who is steering it

An inaugural advisory board will set direction. The list mixes law firms, in-house departments, a law school, a legal-tech vendor, and a research center.

Firm side: Kristen Baylis, senior technology counsel at Orrick; Jake Bernstein, global AI and innovation partner at K&L Gates; Justin Cary at Drummond Woodsum; Andrew DeBratto, chief information officer at Hunton; Matt Kelly, partner at Simpson Thacher; Brenda Leong, director of the AI division at Zwillgen; Marian Waldmann Agarwal, partner in data, cyber, and privacy at Morrison Foerster; David Wakeling, partner and global head of the AI group at A&O Shearman; David Wang, chief innovation officer at Cooley; Meredith Williams-Range, chief legal operations officer at Gibson Dunn; Susannah Wilkinson, director of AI acceleration for Asia and Australia at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer.

Client side: Ameen Haddad, chief operating and innovation officer at Oracle Legal; Marie Jones, associate general counsel at Bank of America; Caroline Louveaux, general counsel for core payment and the chief administrative office at Mastercard; Nikhil Shanbhag, vice president and associate general counsel at Meta.

Also on the board: Tammy Murray, vice president of legal engineering and regulatory investigations at Harvey; Mary Shen O’Carroll, chief executive of LegalEng Consulting Group; Aric Short, professor and director of the professional identity program at Texas A&M University School of Law; Michael Weinberg, executive director of the NYU Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy.

Harvey’s seat is the one to notice. The certification is about overseeing AI in legal work, and a company that sells that software is in the room writing the competencies. Meta, Mastercard, Bank of America, and Oracle are the buyers. Orrick, Cooley, Gibson Dunn, and A&O Shearman are the firms that will both use the tools and advise on them.

What the modules are really testing

IAPP’s module list tracks the split most firms already live with. Foundations and use cases are literacy. Workflow augmentation is the part where a model drafts, reviews, or routes work. Governance, ethics, and professional responsibility are the part a malpractice carrier and a state bar actually ask about: supervision, confidentiality, candor to the tribunal, and who signs the brief.

A certification does not change those duties. It gives a general counsel a named course to point at when a partner wants a tool turned on, and it gives IAPP another credential next to CIPP and AIGP. For privacy counsel who already sit on AI reviews, the useful question is whether the legal-services track covers privilege, outside-counsel guidelines, and billing, or whether it repeats the governance syllabus they already passed.

IAPP said the board will provide strategic direction while the curriculum is built. No exam date was in the October 8 release. The supporter program is the piece that is open now.