Reduce exposure. Accelerate innovation. Add DeepLaw to your board.

By Cameron Powell, J.D. — Trial & Innovation Counsel

Startups are, by definition, incomplete. They don’t yet have product-market fit. They’re raising capital. They’re defining their message. And increasingly, they’re deploying artificial intelligence with little guidance. What they need most isn’t just money but judgment.

That’s why a growing number of venture capital firms and institutional investors are insisting on advisory boards that include seasoned lawyers — but not just any lawyers.

Advisory Board Lawyers Who Understand Invention, Iteration, and Impact

At DeepLaw, we serve on boards because we’ve built and scaled companies across law, software, hardware, healthcare, AI, and creative IP. Cameron Powell has been a founder or early employee of 12 tech startups. He currently holds board or advisory roles with five AI-forward companies — including DecoverAI, a legal tech firm tackling e-discovery inefficiencies, and Acme Labs, a creative AI platform partnered with Chuck Jones’s estate. Gary Shuster, a Harvard-trained lawyer and inventor, holds 255 U.S. patents spanning dozens of industries — from telecommunications to robotics — and brings that same prolific energy to innovation strategy on any board.

We’re not “just lawyers.” We’re your:

• Fundraising strategist who. has coached founders who’ve raised a billion dollars
• Litigation veteran who’s faced down the DOJ and built legal defensibility from day one
• Storytelling expert who’s guided winning investor pitches, product messaging, and AI governance frameworks
• Marketing, communications, and branding veteran who has built companies’ entire branding and communications strategies and run marketing departments
• Inventor’s ally who’s built IP fences that helped startups carve out their blue ocean

This kind of range is rare, and indispensable.

Legal Exposure Isn’t Just a Risk — It’s a Tax on Your Valuation

Many early-stage startups assume lawyers are for later. After the product’s shipped or the seed round’s closed. But legal exposure compounds over time, and it quietly taxes your valuation. We’ve seen founders who skip IP strategy get blindsided during diligence. We’ve seen boardrooms scramble after a startup’s AI integration triggered a data privacy nightmare.

Startups with lawyers on their boards avoid these pitfalls and build stronger companies. They:

• File stronger patents and trade secrets that align with product strategy
• Craft cleaner cap tables, employment agreements, and GTM partnerships
• Build AI features with clear copyright and privacy guardrails
• Train employees to reduce copyright, trademark, and contract risk

And because we’re already embedded in advisory roles, we bring practical templates, scenario-tested playbooks, and real-time visibility into the board-level questions founders don’t know to ask.

Add DeepLaw to Your Board

We serve as advisors or full board members to startups building in:

• Legal tech and compliance automation
• AI-driven knowledge management
• Creative industries navigating generative content
• Healthcare platforms integrating machine learning
• Infrastructure tools for software engineers

We’ve coached founders at Harvard, testified before Congress, and advised some of the most impactful AI-first startups in stealth and post-raise. If you’re building anything that involves AI, software, or IP — or if you’re just serious about protecting and growing your startup’s value — we’re built to help.