John Nay & Mike Schmidtberger

John Nay

John Nay is the Founder and CEO of Norm Ai, which builds AI agents that embed legal and regulatory requirements for financial institutions, and of its affiliated AI-native law firm, Norm Law. Since its founding in 2023, Norm Ai has raised more than $260 million, including investment from Blackstone, and reached a $1.2 billion valuation in 2026. Nay is a Fellow at Stanford Law School's CodeX Center for Legal Informatics, where he leads research on a legal-informatics approach to AI alignment. He earned his Ph.D. at Vanderbilt, conducting AI research funded by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research, and was a postdoctoral research fellow at NYU. He previously founded Brooklyn Artificial Intelligence, an AI-powered investment platform with an SEC-registered investment adviser, which was acquired by Nuveen.

Mike Schmidtberger

Mike Schmidtberger is Chairman of Norm Law LLP and head of its Private Funds and Regulatory practice. He spent more than 35 years at Sidley Austin LLP, where he chaired the firm's Executive Committee from 2018 to 2025, served on its Executive Committee and Management Committee for nearly two decades, led the New York office as Managing Partner, and was a global co-leader of the Private Funds practice. He has been ranked Band 1 and an Eminent Practitioner for hedge funds by Chambers Global and Chambers USA, and in 2026 the Financial Times named him one of its 50 innovators in law. He holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School and a B.A. from Columbia University, which have honored him with the John Jay Award and the Alumni Medal.