Search for:
Announcement

Debevoise Wins “Innovation of the Year” for STAAR 2.0

By: , , , , , , , , , , , , and

We are very proud to announce that Debevoise has been named the “Innovation of the Year” firm winner at the 2026 New York Legal Awards for STAAR 2.0, our AI-powered client platform designed to help organizations accelerate responsible AI adoption. The award, presented by The American Lawyer as part of its New York Legal Awards, recognizes innovation in the delivery of legal services.

STAAR 2.0 is the latest version of Debevoise’s Suite of Tools for Assessing AI Risk (STAAR). Developed by our Data Strategy & Security group, the platform gives clients a secure, AI-powered interface through which they can access Debevoise-approved guidance, policies, use cases, risk assessments and other resources addressing the legal, regulatory and operational challenges associated with AI implementation. Unlike general-purpose AI tools, STAAR’s answers are grounded exclusively in vetted Debevoise content, with responses traceable to the underlying source materials.

The recognition builds on the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers North America Award for Innovation in New Legal Products, which Debevoise received for the original STAAR platform in December 2025. Since then, we launched STAAR 2.0, to turn the knowledge developed through years of advising clients on complex AI regulatory, compliance and transactional matters into a practical and searchable workspace.

We are especially pleased that this award recognizes a model of legal innovation that combines technology with the substantive experience of our lawyers. As organizations move from experimenting with AI to deploying it at scale, STAAR is designed to help in-house legal and compliance teams answer recurring questions more efficiently, benchmark their approaches against emerging practices and apply lessons learned across a rapidly developing area.

The New York Law Journal’s profile of Debevoise as the “Innovation of the Year” firm winner is available here.

***

To subscribe to the Data Blog, please click here.

The Debevoise STAAR (Suite of Tools for Assessing AI Risk) is a monthly subscription service that provides Debevoise clients with an online suite of tools to help them responsibly fast-track their AI adoption. Please contact us at STAARinfo@debevoise.com for more information.

Author

Charu A. Chandrasekhar is a litigation partner based in the New York office and a member of the firm’s White Collar & Regulatory Defense and Data Strategy & Security Groups. Her practice focuses on securities enforcement and government investigations defense and artificial intelligence and cybersecurity regulatory counseling and defense. Charu can be reached at cchandra@debevoise.com.

Author

Avi Gesser is Co-Chair of the Debevoise Data Strategy & Security Group. His practice focuses on advising major companies on a wide range of cybersecurity, privacy and artificial intelligence matters. He can be reached at agesser@debevoise.com.

Author

Diane C. Bernabei is an associate in the Litigation Department. She can be reached at dcbernabei@debevoise.com.

Author

Carl Lasker is an associate in the Litigation Department. He can be reached at calasker@debevoise.com.

Author

Achutha Raman is a law clerk in the Litigation Department. He can be reached at anraman@debevoise.com.

Author

Adam Shankman is an associate in the Litigation Department. He can be reached at adshankm@debevoise.com.

Author

Stan Gershengoren is a Director, Practice & Business Systems at Debevoise. He can be reached at sgershen@debevoise.com.

Author

Karen Levy is the Chief Information Officer at Debevoise and serves on the firm's AI Governance Committee.

Author

Nicholas T. Ziebell is the Head of Practice Systems & Applied AI at Debevoise. He can be reached at nziebell@debevoise.com.

Author

Carolyn Cecil is a STAAR Manager & Senior Data Strategy & Security Case Manager. She can be reached at ccecil@debevoise.com.

Author

Cierra Bakhsh is a Practice & AI Systems Analyst at Debevoise. She can be reached at cbakhsh@debevoise.com.

Author

Margot Mooney is a Practice Manager at Debevoise. She can be reached at mgmooney@debevoise.com.

Author

Oleksiy Pikhmanets is a STAAR Manager & Senior Data Strategy & Security Practice Attorney in the Litigation Department. He can be reached at opikhman@debevoise.com.

Author

Nithya Satiyaselan is a Practice & AI Systems Analyst at Debevoise. She can be reached at nasatiya@debevoise.com.

Related Posts