Recent reporting described tension between the U.S. Department of Defense and AI developer Anthropic over how advanced artificial intelligence systems could be used within defense environments. The episode did not result in litigation, but it highlights a broader issue: federal procurement frameworks are still catching up to the realities of modern AI technology. The Disagreement That Sparked the Discussion According to reports, the disagreement emerged during discussions abo

For years, defense contractors have been told that the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC)  is coming. Then it stalled. Then it returned in revised form. After enough false starts, it became easy to tune it out—just another compliance initiative perpetually on the horizon. That instinct is understandable. It is also increasingly risky. What actually changes in 2026 is not the existence of the rule, but its practical consequences. That is when some contractors—qu

Generative AI tools are now embedded in daily work across organizations. Employees use them to draft emails, memos, summarize documents, and brainstorm strategy. In many cases, that use happens casually and without consultation with legal. What feels like a productivity shortcut to an employee can look very different from the perspective of in-house counsel. The reality facing legal departments in 2026 is not whether employees are using AI tools in ways that conflict with com

Many in-house lawyers inherit export controls without warning. One day it is contracts or IP; the next day someone tells you engineering, HR, and IT are now an “export risk.” That is not an exaggeration. EAR and ITAR regulate who inside your company is legally allowed to know what. Export controls are not mainly about shipping products. They are about information . Design drawings, source code, test data, manufacturing processes, and technical manuals can all become regulated

After our Part I post on the vocabulary of startup funding, we sought to provide additional guidance to founders with new products. Their product exists in some stage of development. There’s early interest—maybe a pilot customer or two. The founder has started hearing phrases like “traction,” “runway,” and “institutional capital,” often in the same week. This is typically where Michigan founders begin to feel a little unmoored—not because the business is weak, but because fun

If you are building a startup in Michigan, fundraising can feel opaque—not because capital is unavailable, but because it comes in stages , each with its own logic, expectations, and tradeoffs. This post is meant to demystify those stages by explaining why they exist, what they are designed to fund, and how Michigan founders typically experience them. Rather than treating funding rounds as labels, it helps to see them as checkpoints in a company’s development. Each round answ

For more than a decade, § 101 has been the dark cloud over U.S. patent practice. Even companies with sophisticated R&D pipelines routinely find themselves stuck in eligibility quicksand, watching well-designed innovations get bounced as “abstract ideas” or “mere data processing.” Yet the surprising truth is this: the companies that consistently avoid § 101 headaches aren’t doing anything exotic. They aren’t filing longer applications, or denser ones, or even necessarily more

Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly transforming industries and businesses. Governments worldwide are catching up. Expect new laws...