The practitioner who redesigns expert firms for the AI era — and runs one.
I’m Rob Griffitts — a corporate lawyer of twenty-plus years and a partner at Griffitts LLP, the New York boutique that bears my name. I’m rebuilding my own firm on an AI-native operating model: fixed fees, senior judgment on every matter, AI-carried process.
Through obiqara, I help professional-services firms do the same — and I teach accountable leaders to build real, governed AI workflows and make AI decisions they can defend.
headshot — save photo as rob-headshot.jpg next to this file
AI is making expertise abundant. When expertise is abundant, advantage shifts to how a firm is designed — how work moves, how judgment is applied, how trust is governed.
That’s the thesis behind everything on this page: the firm I’m rebuilding, the firms I advise, and the leaders I teach. Technology matters. But technology alone doesn’t change outcomes — design does.
Talks for rooms where the decisions get made.
Partner retreats, boards, executive committees, and industry events. Practitioner material — what I’ve actually built and changed — not commentary.
When Everyone Has AI: Where Advantage Moves
AI is raising the baseline for every firm at once — making expertise more accessible and eroding traditional advantages. So where does advantage come from next? A frame for how professional firms compete when the tools are the same on both sides: redesigning how work moves, where human judgment sits, and how trust scales.
Walk away withA clear frame for where your firm’s next advantage comes from — and the three dimensions it lives in.
The Defensible AI Decision
Executive accountability for AI is at an all-time high — and governance maturity isn’t close behind it. A lawyer’s take on what “defensible” actually means: who owns each AI-assisted decision, where humans stay in the loop, what you must be able to explain afterward — and why the firms moving fastest on AI have the deepest governance, not the lightest.
Walk away withThe questions to ask before — and after — any consequential AI deployment.
Rebuilding My Own Firm with AI: A Practitioner’s Report
What actually happens when a twenty-year-old law firm redesigns itself around AI — intake, drafting, knowledge, billing — told from inside. What worked, what broke, what surprised us, and the governance discipline that made it safe to go fast. No vendor slides; the real thing.
Walk away withA realistic 90-day picture of what operating-model redesign involves in a working firm.
Keynote
30–60 minutes. Conferences, association events, client gatherings.
Half-day workshop
Working session for a leadership team — the talk, then applied to your firm.
Retreat & offsite sessions
Partner retreats and board offsites that need an AI agenda with substance.
Hands-on AI for accountable leaders.
I teach the Executive AI Accelerator — a small-cohort program for senior leaders and partners of professional-services firms. Not theory, not hype, not prompt tutorials: you build, and what you build has to hold up.
- A prioritized, defensible shortlist of AI bets for your firm — where the value actually is.
- One or two working AI workflows you built yourself, in your own domain.
- A governance and guardrails framework you can stand behind in front of a board, a client, or a regulator.
Small cohorts. Real work. Defensible results.
8–12 leaders per cohort · 4–5 weeks, virtual-first · designed for 2–4 hours a week. Also available as a private cohort for one firm’s leadership team.
Built for professional-services firms — law, accounting, advisory, consulting — not “all executives.” Full program page coming soon at obiqara.com.
Notes from the rebuild.
Observations from redesigning a working firm — and from helping others do the same. Published on LinkedIn and obiqara Insights.
Twenty years of deals. Then the denominator changed.
I’ve spent more than twenty years as a corporate transactions lawyer, advising founders, family offices, and closely-held businesses on formation, financings, M&A, and IP — much of it cross-border.
When AI began making expertise abundant, I did what I’d advise any client to do: I started with my own firm. Griffitts LLP now runs on an AI-native operating model — fixed fees, senior judgment on every matter, AI-carried process — and the rebuild taught me more than any report could. I founded obiqara to bring that work to other professional-services firms, and I teach senior leaders to do the same in their own organizations: hands-on, and defensibly.
Bring this to your firm, your board, or your stage.
Speaking, the program, or a conversation about where your firm stands — the fastest route is email.
Or ask the assistant in the corner — it can point you to the right place.