Damien Riehl

vLex Fastcase

Damien Riehl is a lawyer and technologist with experience in complex litigation, digital forensics, and software development. A lawyer since 2002 and coder since 1985, Damien clerked for the chief judges of state and federal courts, practiced in complex litigation for over a decade, has led teams of cybersecurity and world-spanning digital forensics investigations, and has built AI-backed legal software.

Co-Chair of the Minnesota Governor’s Council on Connected and Automated Vehicles, he is helping recommend changes to Minnesota statutes, rules, and policies — all related to connected and autonomous vehicles. Damien is Chair of the Minnesota State Bar Association's AI Committee, which oversees an AI Sandbox to promote Access to Justice (A2J).

With FOLIO, the legal ontology project from the ALEA Institute, Damien helps corporations, their law firms, and legal technology vendors implement legal data standards. For years, Damien led SALI, the legal data standard, where he developed and greatly expanded the taxonomy of over 18,000 legal tags that matter, helping the legal industry's development of Generative AI, analytics, and interoperability.

At vLex — which includes Vincent, Fastcase, NextChapter, and Docket Alarm — Damien helps lead the design, development, and expansion of various products, integrating AI-backed technologies (e.g., GPT) into a billion-document dataset from 100+ countries, all to improve legal workflows.