Most legislation is drafted through a process in which the main stakeholders—those who will support or oppose enactment—never
directly address each other's concerns. Any debate happens only indirectly, through lobbying of individual lawmakers,
through attempts to shape public opinion, and through dueling testimony at hearings.
A better way exists. Stakeholders with different perspectives can sit around a table together and work through draft bills line by line.
By focusing on the details of draft legislation, disagreements crystalize and common ground is slowly revealed. Repeated discussions
can lead to legislative approaches that leave everyone better off.
[See More]
Key state legislation has been drafted this way for decades. State lawmakers have, on more than 6,000 occasions, enacted legislation
developed by the Uniform Law Commission, which convenes stakeholders for collaborative drafting efforts. (Several organizations
use similar approaches at the multilateral level as well.) But this approach has not yet been adapted for use at the federal level.
The Law Reform Institute was founded to fill that gap. We ask stakeholders with different perspectives to sit at a table together
to work through draft bills line by line, doing so through multiple iterations as needed. We focus on the details of bills so that
disagreements on broader issues don't serve as roadblocks.
Our initial projects focus on developing legislation related to artificial intelligence. Some AI-related legislative proposals
have failed to take into account a sufficiently wide range of views. Our view is that, by having all relevant stakeholders engage with each
other directly, in the context of developing specific text for a bill, we can vastly improve the odds of identifying promising
legislative fixes for real problems.
See the AI-related topics we are exploring: [See More]
Protecting Frontier Models from Foreign Adversaries: The weights of frontier AI models are increasingly valuable assets at risk of being targeted by foreign adversaries. As models become more capable, ensuring that these model weights are secure will become a significant national security concern. We are exploring the development of a statutory framework that would enable the federal government to provide assistance to frontier labs in securing the weights of the most advanced systems, such as through red-teaming, expedited personnel vetting, and information sharing.
Antitrust Exemption: As frontier models come closer to being able to enable real-world harms—such as cyberattacks and biological weapons proliferation—many labs
will want to collaborate more on research that will help to mitigate those risks. Yet fears of antitrust implications sometimes chill collaboration that
would be in the public interest. Startups and smaller labs that do not have dedicated antitrust counsel may be particularly affected in this respect. We are
exploring whether a narrowly targeted antitrust exemption could be useful.
Classified Information: Under the Atomic Energy Act, certain information regarding nuclear weapons and other nuclear material is "born secret" regardless of who produces it. Disclosure of such classified information (known as Restricted Data) is subject to criminal penalties. As frontier AI models get closer to being able to generate such information despite being trained only on unclassified materials, the application of these restrictions may need to be clarified—particularly for smaller AI labs that may not have working relationships with the Department of Energy.
We are also working to identify topics in other areas of the law that might eventually benefit from our working methods. See some of the topics that have been suggested to us:
[See More]
•Cooperation among bankruptcy courts handling multi-jurisdictional group insolvency cases
•Reestablishment of a congressional Office of Legal Counsel
•Adjustment of ERISA preemption of state succession law rules of construction
•Codification of common-law conflict of law rules
Tim Schnabel, President
[email protected]
[See Bio]
Before founding the Law Reform Institute, Tim successfully led similar efforts at the state and multilateral levels. From 2019 to 2025, he served as the Executive Director of the Uniform Law Commission, an organization formed by the governments of all 50 states to develop and seek enactment of model state legislation. He also spent a decade at the U.S. Department of State, where he served as the lead negotiator for several multilateral treaties and other instruments aimed at legal harmonization, including the Singapore Mediation Convention. He practiced law in the National Security group at WilmerHale and clerked for the Hon. Janice Rogers Brown on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School.
Joe Khawam, Legislative Director
[email protected]
[See Bio]
From 2012 to 2025, Joe was an attorney at the U.S. Department of State, where he worked on multilateral law reform issues as well as regulatory matters such as export controls and sanctions. He represented the U.S. government as head of delegation in several private international law negotiations at the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law and the Hague Conference on Private International Law. He also advised policy officials on defense trade controls, economic sanctions, and export controls, and served as in-house counsel on a range of litigation matters. Previously, he practiced law in WilmerHale's Litigation Department, focusing on international arbitration and government investigations. He received his J.D. from Columbia Law School.
Diane Boyer-Vine, Secretary
Cory Skolnick, Treasurer
Advisory Board
Jane Bambauer
Nita Farahany
Eugene Volokh
Cam Ward
Dave Zvenyach