There are moments in a professional life when the right conversation at the right time changes how you see a problem you have been living with for months. When a peer describes an approach you had not considered. When a discussion in a small group surfaces a framework that reshapes your thinking. When you leave a room knowing that the next twelve months will look different because of what you heard and who you talked with.
LexTalk World San Francisco 2026 is an invitation to be in those rooms.
On November 19 and 20, 2026, the South San Francisco Conference Center will bring together General Counsel, Chief Legal Officers, senior in-house counsel, law firm partners, legal operations leaders, and legal technology decision-makers for two days of sessions, roundtables, and conversations about the questions that matter most to the legal profession right now.
We would like you to be there.
Why We Bring Legal Professionals Together
The legal profession is navigating a genuinely complex period. Artificial intelligence is restructuring how legal work gets done. Intellectual property is at the center of some of the most consequential business decisions companies are making. Cross-border regulatory environments are becoming harder to manage. The expectations on General Counsel and in-house legal teams have expanded well beyond traditional legal advisory roles.
None of these challenges are abstract. They are showing up in real decisions, real client relationships, real boardroom conversations, and real operational pressures right now.
The professionals best positioned to navigate this period are not those with the most information. Information is widely available. They are the professionals connected to the community of peers who are working through the same challenges in real time, sharing what is working, sharing what has failed, and thinking carefully together about what comes next.
That is what LexTalk World is designed to facilitate. Not a showcase of prepared remarks. Not a series of panels where everyone agrees. A gathering of legal professionals willing to engage seriously with the questions shaping their field.
What You Will Encounter in San Francisco
The LexTalk World San Francisco 2026 program is built around the theme “The New Legal Economy: AI and Enterprise.” The agenda combines main-stage panel sessions with executive roundtables designed for small-group, candid professional dialogue.
The Themes on the Agenda
The confirmed main-stage panels address the professional questions that legal teams and law firms are actively working through:
The Business of Law in the Age of AI. How artificial intelligence is changing not just how legal work gets done, but how legal departments are organized, valued, and expected to operate. The economic model of legal services is shifting, and the professionals leading legal teams need to understand where it is going.
AI Agent Orchestration Inside Corporate Legal. Beyond AI as a research or drafting tool. AI agents are beginning to coordinate workflows, automate multi-step processes, and make decisions within defined parameters. What does that mean for oversight, responsibility, and legal risk?
Cross-Border Regulatory Compliance. Operating across multiple jurisdictions has always been complex. The pace of regulatory change, particularly in areas touching AI, data, and technology, has increased that complexity significantly. The panel will address practical frameworks for staying ahead of obligations that keep shifting.
The Redefined Role of In-House Legal Teams. The General Counsel who primarily managed outside counsel and handled legal review is becoming rarer. The modern GC is expected to contribute to business strategy, manage technology decisions, engage with the board on enterprise risk, and lead a legal function that is expected to deliver efficiency and innovation simultaneously. The panel will address what that transition actually looks like inside organizations.
Intellectual Property as a Competitive Asset. IP is no longer just a defensive function. The companies that treat IP as a strategic business asset, understanding what they own, how to monetize it, and how to protect it in an AI-intensive environment, are pulling ahead of those that treat it as a compliance matter.
The AI IPO Landscape. For legal professionals advising companies on the path to public markets, the AI-driven IPO environment presents new diligence requirements, new disclosure questions, and new board governance considerations. The panel examines where the market is and where it is headed.
Legal Decision-Making Under Time Pressure. The compressed timelines of modern business are placing new demands on how legal professionals assess risk and make recommendations. The panel addresses frameworks for sound judgment when there is not enough time for exhaustive analysis.
Managing Information Exposure Risk. As more information moves through AI tools, cloud platforms, and distributed workflows, the legal risks associated with information exposure have multiplied. The panel addresses practical risk management approaches for legal teams.
The Opening Keynote
Day 1 opens with a keynote address by Dr. Dvorah Graeser, Founder and CEO of RocketSmart.io, on how AI is restructuring legal practice from the inside out. Dr. Graeser brings a perspective that combines deep technical understanding with direct legal practice experience, and her address will set the tone for the two days of discussion that follow.
The Executive Roundtables
The executive roundtables are where the program shifts from presentation to dialogue.
Each roundtable brings together 8 to 10 senior legal professionals. The sessions operate under the Chatham House Rule: what is said stays in the room, and participants can speak candidly without concern about attribution. No presentations, no slides, no recordings.
A facilitator guides each session, but the direction and depth of the conversation come from the participants. These sessions are not moderated Q&A. They are structured professional conversations designed to produce genuine insight rather than polished talking points.
Eight roundtable topics are confirmed for San Francisco:
Protecting AI Assets: The Hidden IP Challenges Inside Enterprises. The intellectual property risks embedded in enterprise AI adoption are often identified late, when they are significantly more expensive to address. This roundtable brings together legal professionals who have worked through these challenges to share what early identification looks like in practice.
The New IP Stack: Patents, Copyright, Data, Open Source and AI. The traditional categories of intellectual property are being tested and in some cases redefined by AI-generated content, training data questions, and the intersection of open source licensing with proprietary AI development. What does the modern IP portfolio actually need to cover?
When the Shield Breaks: Cyber Incidents, AI Failures and Crisis Leadership. How do experienced legal professionals lead their organizations through a significant cyber incident or AI-related failure? What decisions in the first 48 hours determine the outcome? What do the professionals who have been through it wish they had done differently?
Board Governance, Executive Accountability and Personal Liability. The governance expectations on General Counsel and senior executives have shifted. Personal liability exposure is real in a way it was not a decade ago. The roundtable addresses the practical governance structures that protect both the organization and the individuals leading it.
The IP Function of 2030: From Legal Protector to Innovation Strategist. How do legal professionals lead the evolution of the IP function from a reactive, defensive posture to a proactive role in business strategy and innovation? What capabilities, relationships, and structures does that transition require?
IP Due Diligence in Technology M&A: Finding the Risks Before the Deal Closes. Technology transactions are increasingly driven by IP value, and the risks embedded in that IP, particularly around AI training data, open source obligations, and third-party dependencies, are not always visible in standard due diligence processes. The roundtable examines where the gaps are and how experienced practitioners find them.
Managing Outside Counsel: Driving Value Beyond the Billable Hour. The in-house/outside counsel relationship is under pressure from both directions. In-house teams are expected to demonstrate more value with fewer resources. Outside counsel are navigating a profession being reshaped by AI and changing client expectations. What do the most productive outside counsel relationships actually look like in this environment?
The Leadership Reality of the Modern GC: Rebuilding the Legal Function for the Next Era. An honest conversation about what leading a legal function in 2026 actually requires, the talent models that work, the technology decisions that matter, the internal credibility that takes years to build, and the personal sustainability of doing the job at the level it demands.
Roundtable access is included with the Executive Pass.
What Makes Being in San Francisco Worth It
The case for attending an event in person, rather than watching recordings or reading post-event summaries, is a question worth taking seriously. Senior professionals have limited time and genuine competing demands on it.
There are three things that in-person attendance at LexTalk World San Francisco provides that cannot be replicated through any other format.
Peer-level calibration. Understanding how your organization’s approach to a specific challenge compares to how peers with similar responsibilities are approaching the same challenge. This calibration requires candid conversation with people who are not in a commercial relationship with you and have no incentive to describe the challenge as more complicated than it is. That kind of conversation happens in person, at the right kind of event, more reliably than anywhere else.
Relationship depth. The professional relationships that remain useful three years from now are formed in sustained conversations, not in brief exchanges at receptions. Two days of shared sessions, shared meals, and shared discussion gives participants enough context about each other to know which connections are worth maintaining. The follow-up after a conversation like that is not starting from zero.
The conversations between sessions. The discussions that happen over coffee before a session begins, during the lunch break, at the Day 1 cocktail reception, are not incidental to the program. For many participants, they are the program. Those conversations are more productive at LexTalk World because everyone in the room has just shared a session together and already has something substantive to continue talking about.
A Note on California CLE Credit
The event is California CLE accredited. CLE credit is included with every paid delegate pass at no additional cost.
For California-licensed attorneys and attorneys from other jurisdictions seeking California CLE credit, the program satisfies your professional development requirement while covering substantive content directly relevant to the challenges you are working through.
Join Us as a Delegate
We have designed four pass options to suit different professional needs. Every paid pass includes California CLE credit, breakfast and lunch on both days, and access to the Day 1 cocktail reception.
Essential Pass: Main-stage sessions, networking, and the cocktail reception. Limited seats remaining.
Focused Learning Pass ($299 per attendee): Full main-stage access, California CLE credit, all meals, cocktail reception, and professional photography.
Executive Pass ($499 per attendee): Everything in the Focused Learning Pass, plus a reserved seat in the executive roundtables. This is the pass for professionals who want to participate in the small-group, candid peer discussions that the roundtables provide.
Team Pass ($999 for five attendees): Full conference access, CLE credit, all meals, cocktail reception, and professional photography for teams of five. Organizations sending larger groups can request a custom quote.
If you attend both days and do not find the event valuable, we offer a full refund. Submit the official feedback form before leaving and without claiming CLE credit, and you will receive a complete refund.
Register as a delegate: lextalk.world/san-francisco-delegate-registration/
Why November in San Francisco
There is something fitting about bringing the legal community together in San Francisco in November 2026. The city sits at the center of the technology industry whose decisions are reshaping the legal profession more than any other force. The Bay Area is home to a significant concentration of in-house legal talent at some of the world’s most consequential technology companies. It is a geography that takes the intersection of law, technology, and business seriously.
The South San Francisco Conference Center provides a professional, focused environment for the kind of program we have designed. Close enough to the city to offer everything San Francisco has to offer for anyone extending their stay. Purpose-built for the size and format of event that actually produces the professional outcomes we are aiming for.
An Open Invitation
We are building something at LexTalk World that we believe the legal community needs: a genuinely useful gathering of serious professionals who are willing to engage honestly with the challenges facing their field, share what they know, and listen carefully to what others have learned.
LexTalk World San Francisco is not for everyone. It is for the General Counsel who wants a candid peer conversation about what leading a modern legal function actually requires. For the law firm partner thinking carefully about where the profession is headed and what that means for their practice. For the in-house counsel navigating the intersection of AI, IP, and enterprise governance. For the legal operations leader who wants to compare notes with peers doing the same work at different organizations.
If that sounds like you, San Francisco in November is where you should be.
We look forward to welcoming you.
Register here: lextalk.world/san-francisco-delegate-registration/
LexTalk World San Francisco 2026 takes place on November 19 and 20, 2026, at the South San Francisco Conference Center. The event is California CLE accredited. Delegate registration is open at lextalk.world/san-francisco-delegate-registration/. Conference information is available at lextalk.world/san-francisco-conference-2026/.
