Damien Riehl.

Lawyer · Technologist · Musician

Damien Riehl

At the intersection of law, AI, music & human values.

Damien Riehl

A lawyer since 2002 and a coder since 1985 — Damien clerked for the chief judges of state and federal courts, led world-spanning digital forensics investigations, and for the past decade has been building AI-backed legal improvements.

Throughout: widening access to justice — working with law firms, law departments, courts, legal aid, to help everyday people.

Portrait of Damien Riehl
471BMelodies, given away (CC0)
18,000+Legal tags (SALI · FOLIO)
1985Coding since
6Continents (Schola Diffusa)
Builder and Advisor Clio ALEA FOLIO Minnesota State Bar Association Scale Justice Schola Diffusa MN Governor's Council on Connected and Automated VehiclesMN Governor's Council on Connected & Automated Vehicles Catholic Digital CommonsCatholic Digital Commons
Past Experience
Substantive Law
Robins Kaplan Jardine, Logan & O'Brien Stroz Friedberg (Aon) CenterPoint Energy U.S. District Court (Minnesota)U.S. Dist. Court MN U.S. Bankruptcy Court (North Dakota)U.S. Bankr. Court ND Minnesota Court of AppealsMinn. Court of Appeals
Legal Tech
Thomson Reuters Fastcase vLex
Volunteering
SALI Alliance Minnestar Kantorei

01 ⁄ 05

Lawyer

The practice of law.

Clerk to the chief judges of state and federal courts. ~15 years of legal practice and complex litigation. Leader of world-spanning digital forensics investigations — and access-to-justice work carried from the courtroom into the AI age.

Explore the law

02 ⁄ 05

Technologist

Building legal AI.

A decade building AI-backed legal software — today at Clio, across a billion-document dataset from 100+ countries. Architect of legal data standards (SALI, FOLIO), building knowledge graphs for legal determinism. Chair of the MSBA AI Committee's AI Sandbox to promote access to justice, also working with courts nationwide (e.g., Colorado, Arizona, Louisiana).

Explore the tech

03 ⁄ 05

Music

471 billion melodies — given away.

Founder of All the Music: composing every melody that has ever existed, or ever can, brute-forced and released to the public domain (CC0) to protect songwriters. Founder of Schola Diffusa, a virtual choir with singers on six continents.

Explore the music

04 ⁄ 05

AI + Human Values

Aligning AI with human values.

Convened at the Vatican with Catholic leaders on how AI will transform society and people of faith. A leader of the Catholic Digital Commons Foundation — free, open-source tools that widen access for communities worldwide — and the Catholic Semantic Canon.

Explore human values

05 ⁄ 05

Speaking

TEDx + conference keynotes + partner retreats + boardrooms + judicial conferences.

A sought-after voice on AI and the law — translating where we're headed — for audiences from keynotes to courtrooms to the C-suite.

See speaking topics

All the Music

Every melody that can exist — composed, copyrighted, then set free.

Using brute force not to break a password but to break music, Damien's team wrote every melody that has ever been written, and every one that ever can be — then dedicated all 471 billion to the public domain (CC0), to defend songwriters from "you stole my melody" lawsuits. Perhaps melodies are unoriginal, therefore uncopyrightable.

471BMelodies written to disk
300KGenerated per second
CC0Released to the public domain
This guy rocks!
Elon Musk

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