Our team

The people behind Lanterns.

We don’t just advise firms on AI. Each of us runs a practice built around it — a think tank, a two-person firm, a one-person appellate shop — so the guidance we bring you is the same thing we rely on ourselves.

Stanford Law

Conner Brown

Co-founder

An AI-optimized think tank

Bitcoin Policy Institute ↗

Runs the Bitcoin Policy Institute as an AI-optimized think tank — research and policy work built around frontier models rather than bolted onto them.

Conner studied at Stanford Law with a focus on AI and financial technology, then practiced at Cravath, Swaine & Moore and in Sidley Austin's Chambers Band 1 Fintech & Blockchain group.

He served as counsel to Senator Cynthia Lummis — leading her AI and digital-asset policy and directing the Senate Financial Innovation Caucus. Today he is Managing Director of the Bitcoin Policy Institute.

Yale Law

Zack Shapiro

Co-founder

A two-person agentic law firm

Rains LLP ↗

Runs Rains LLP as a two-person, agentic law firm — AI does the work that once required a floor of associates, and two lawyers carry the practice.

Zack graduated from Yale Law and practiced at Davis Polk, after clerking in the Southern District of New York and on the Second Circuit.

He is Managing Partner of Rains LLP and Head of Policy at the Bitcoin Policy Institute. His essays on the AI-native law firm have been read millions of times.

Michael Showalter, Co-founder of Lanterns

Yale Law

Michael Showalter

Co-founder

A one-person appellate firm

Showalter PLLC ↗

Runs Showalter PLLC as a one-person appellate shop — using AI as its librarian, paralegal, and team of associates to deliver work that once took a firm.

Michael graduated from Yale Law and was an appellate lawyer at Gibson Dunn, where he drafted merits, certiorari, and amicus briefs for the U.S. Supreme Court and federal courts of appeals nationwide.

His amicus in SEC v. Jarkesy advanced arguments Justice Gorsuch later took up. He now runs Showalter PLLC.

Who we’ve briefed

Briefings and working sessions delivered to

The White House
The Treasury Department
The Department of War
The Department of Commerce
The Senate Banking Committee
The Senate Commerce Committee
The House Select Committee on the CCP
The U.S. Intelligence Community
The United Nations
The House of Lords

Where confidentiality requires, firms are listed as anonymized descriptors.

Want to talk it through with us?