First in his family. Not the last.
A first-generation college graduate from Chicago's South Side who now works on both sides of the AI question — building it lawfully inside one of the world's largest AI research organizations, and teaching the lawyers who will govern it. Product legal lead for AI research at Meta. Adjunct professor and Director of the First-Generation Program at UC Law San Francisco. Board chair, board director, mentor. The through-line is access: to the technology, to the profession, and to the rooms where both get decided.
The work is judgment
In-house for most of his career, across tech, health, biotech, and financial services. The specialty is the seam where new AI capability meets old law — privacy, biometrics, intellectual property, and regulatory strategy.
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Meta — Product Legal Lead, AI Research
Leads legal support for Meta's AI research organization and its AI API. Advises the teams building generative AI, speech and language technologies, and advanced machine learning on regulatory strategy, privacy, IP, and responsible launch — including work connected to Meta Muse.
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AI Governance & Biometric Privacy
Speaks nationally on AI governance, legal ethics, and LGBTQ+ equity. Builds practical playbooks for the questions with no statute yet — biometric privacy amendments (Illinois, Texas, Washington), AI product demos, and regulator engagement.
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The road here
Senior product counsel roles at Twilio and Uber before Meta — global product, health, and telecommunications work — after earlier chapters at Stanford Medicine, a biotech company, city government, consulting, and a record label. The full biography is on his UC Law SF profile.
The pathway widens
First in his family to attend college — on a full merit scholarship. A decade-plus of mentoring first-generation, Black, and LGBTQ+ students is now the day job's second half, not a side project.
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UC Law San Francisco — Faculty Profile
Adjunct Professor of AI Law and Director of the First-Generation Program at UC Law SF. Mentorship, professional identity, and inclusive pathways into the legal profession.
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LAW 557 — AI Law
Co-teaches AI Law in person each fall with a practitioner faculty drawn from across the field. His Fall 2026 sessions: October 22 and November 12.
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First-Generation Program
Directs the program serving students who are first in their families to attend college, graduate school, or professional school — an intentionally expansive definition, because the door should be as wide as the experience.
Director -
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Mentorship, beyond the building
Mentors LGBTQ+ undergraduates through the University of Florida's Pathways to Pride, and has supported first-generation and Black aspiring lawyers through Bridge Builders Esq., UStrive, and BALIF's mentorship program.
Ongoing
The service is governance
Four boards, one pattern: institutions that turn legal access into material change — child care as a civil right, youth kept out of the system, healing for people coming home, and a profession that lets more people in.
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Child Care Law Center — Board Chair
Board member since 2018, now Chair. CCLC works to make affordable, high-quality child care a civil right and a route to educational and economic opportunity for low-income families.
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Fresh Lifelines for Youth — Board Director
FLY disrupts the cycle of incarceration through legal education, leadership training, and mentorship for system-involved and at-risk youth. Ernest also chairs its Governance Committee.
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UnCommon Law — Board Director
Advances healing and justice for people impacted by incarceration and life sentences, through legal representation and systems change inside California prisons.
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Justice & Diversity Center · BALIF Foundation
Director at the Justice and Diversity Center of the Bar Association of San Francisco, and board member of the BALIF Foundation, which funds scholarships for LGBTQ+ law students and graduates. Co-founder of BASF's Annual Barristers Diversity Conference.
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ABA Young Lawyers Division
Liaison to the Science & Technology Law section for 2026–2027 — the bridge between the young-lawyer bar and the AI questions arriving in practice.
2026–27
The formal file
Recognition for the same two things, repeatedly: judgment inside the company, and doors opened outside it. Education first — three degrees, three disciplines, all of them in use.
Named to Modern Counsel's 35 Under 35 for 2024, on the strength of AI product work at Meta paired with board and diversity leadership across the legal community — and a stated view that in-house counsel is a driver of decisions, not a cost center.
B.S. in Psychology from the University of Florida, attended on a full merit scholarship. M.B.A. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. J.D. from Washington and Lee University School of Law, class of 2013 — where the career-path interview below traces how the winding road became the point.
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MCCA Rising Star
Minority Corporate Counsel Association Rising Star Award, 2023.
2023 -
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Leadership Luminary — National Bar Association
Leadership Luminary Award from the LGBTQ Division of the National Bar Association, 2024.
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Barristers Diversity Award — BASF
Bar Association of San Francisco Barristers Diversity Award, 2022. Co-founded its Annual Barristers Diversity Conference.
2022 -
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Unity Award — Minority Bar Coalition
Minority Bar Coalition Unity Award, 2022, for coalition work across the Bay Area's minority bar associations.
2022
Off the clock
The short version, because the site is the record, not the diary. Chicago stays in the accent; San Francisco is home.
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South Side → the Bay
Raised on Chicago's South Side. Bay Area since 2017. Lives in San Francisco's Visitacion Valley with his husband.
SF · 2017— -
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Allegiances
Chicago teams, Florida Gators, and a record collection's worth of Black music across every genre and era — R&B, soul, funk, jazz, hip-hop, gospel, Afrobeats.
Always