Verifying AI-Generated M&A Markups and Diligence Reports Before Delivery: Malpractice Exposure and the Review Record

Steven E. Bartz, Shareholder | Greenberg Traurig, LLP
Steven E. Bartz is a Shareholder at Greenberg Traurig, LLP in Dallas, where his practice centers on private equity transactions, including M&A, joint ventures and strategic alliances, private placements and fund formations. He advises private equity sponsors, portfolio companies, and strategic buyers and sellers on the acquisitions, investments and divestitures at the core of their strategic initiatives, and he serves on the American Bar Association’s Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Committee within the Section of Science & Technology Law.

• Education & Credentials

Steve earned his J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School in 2006 and his A.B. from Duke University in 2003. He is a candidate for an LL.M. in Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law. He is admitted to practice in Texas and Georgia.

• Recognition & Leadership

Chambers USA Guide lists Steve for Corporate/M&A (2026) and as a Team Member for Space (2025–2026). The Best Lawyers in America recognizes him for Corporate Law and Mergers and Acquisitions Law (2026–2027) and for Business Organizations (2027). D Magazine has named him among the Best Lawyers in Dallas (2022–2026), The Legal 500 United States ranked him from 2017 to 2019, including its M&A middle-market rankings, and Texas Super Lawyers named him a Rising Star (2014–2020), including its Up-and-Coming 100 (2019–2020).

• Professional Involvement

Within the American Bar Association (2021–2026), Steve is a member of the Section of Science & Technology Law, including its Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Committee and Space Law Committee (2025–2026); the Business Law Section, including the LLCs, Partnerships and Unincorporated Entities Committee; and the Forum on Air and Space Law, including the Space Law: Commercial, Regulatory and Litigation Developments Committee (2025–2026). He is an Elected Member of the International Institute of Space Law (2024–2026).

• Experience

Steve’s M&A work for sponsors and strategic buyers includes representing LexisNexis Risk Solutions Inc. in the sale of its Insurance Software Solutions business to GI Acquisition Corp., a Genstar Capital subsidiary; Roark Capital Group in its approximately $430 million acquisition of Arby’s Restaurant Group, Inc. from Wendy’s/Arby’s Group; Vizient in its strategic minority investment in Kaufman, Hall & Associates, LLC and its later exercise of the option to acquire the remaining interest from Madison Dearborn Partners; Iron Data Solutions, LLC in its recapitalization with Arlington Capital Partners; Massive Interactive, Inc. in its acquisition by Deltatre; MapFrame in its strategic acquisition by an affiliate of General Electric Co.; and Eutelsat Group in the unwinding of its 50/50 joint venture, Airbus OneWeb Satellites, with Airbus. Some of these representations were handled prior to his joining Greenberg Traurig, LLP.

His private equity experience spans financial services, air and space, satellite, manufacturing, health care, sports and entertainment, real estate, hospitality, and energy, and covers raising capital through private placements, deploying it through buyouts, control and non-control investments and joint ventures, and monetizing investments through negotiated divestitures, auction sales and recapitalizations. He also advises founders and owners on growth initiatives and liquidity events, and counsels private equity and venture capital fund sponsors on structuring, launching and managing investment fund platforms, including management companies, carried-interest and co-investment vehicles, SPVs and institutional private funds.

Caitlin M. Velasco, Partner | K&L Gates LLP
Caitlin M. Velasco is a Partner in the Corporate group at K&L Gates LLP in Seattle, where her practice concentrates on mergers and acquisitions, emerging growth and venture capital, and private equity transactions, with an industry focus on technology and on video games and immersive technology. She represents startup and emerging growth companies from formation through financing to exit, and her clients include private equity, technology, energy and manufacturing businesses.

• Education & Credentials

Caitlin earned her J.D. from the University of Washington School of Law in 2017 and her B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of Washington in 2013. She is admitted to the Bar of Washington.

• Recognition & Leadership

Caitlin led the K&L Gates team that advised Collinear Group, LLC, a Renton, Washington-based aerospace and defense consulting provider, on its 2026 sale to Capgemini, and was among the Seattle partners advising CDSG HoldCo, LLC on the 2025 sale of CRU Data Security Group, a data security and physical data protection company, to a private equity buyer. Her commentary on corporate law developments has been published by the National Law Review and on the K&L Gates Hub.

• Professional Involvement

Caitlin is a regular author on corporate and transactional law. Her published pieces cover Delaware Court of Chancery decisions on shareholder derivative suits and demand futility, appraisal and fair value, dissolution of corporations and limited liability companies, and specific performance of settlement agreements, as well as the 2019 changes to Washington’s corporate statute and the SEC’s 2020 rule changes harmonizing the private placement framework. Before law school she worked in the medical and telecommunications industries, and she was a summer associate at K&L Gates in 2015 and 2016.

• Experience

Caitlin’s transactional practice covers mergers and acquisitions, cross-border transactions, venture capital and private equity investments, equity and debt financing, public and private securities offerings, and corporate governance. She guides startup and emerging growth companies through each stage of the company lifecycle, from formation and financing to exit. Before law school she worked in the medical and telecommunications industries, and she was a summer associate at K&L Gates in 2015 and 2016.

SESSION 1 – AI in M&A: Purchase Agreement Review, Transaction Workflows and Escalation | 2:30pm – 3:30pm

This practical session explores how deal counsel on technology, video game, and venture-backed company exits, and on private equity acquisitions of those companies, can use AI tools to review purchase agreements and support other stages of an M&A transaction while retaining responsibility for legal judgment and final work product. Using a purchase agreement review as the central example, we will cover setting review instructions, checking AI-generated markups and issues lists, and identifying departures from the deal’s agreed terms and negotiating positions. We will also discuss applications in ancillary documents (such as NDAs), diligence, disclosure schedules and closing coordination. The session concludes with how to build an escalation matrix that defines which issues a reviewer can resolve, which require specialist or supervising lawyer review, and which require client approval before proceeding.

BREAK | 3:30pm – 3:40pm

SESSION 2 – AI-Assisted Legal Work: Efficiency, Verification, and Professional Judgment | 3:40pm – 4:40pm

Artificial intelligence can identify issues, summarize agreements, generate diligence reports, and even propose transaction-document markups in a fraction of the time historically required by deal teams. Yet AI-generated work product is never the deliverable. The deliverable remains the lawyer’s verified analysis and professional judgment.
This session examines what transactional counsel should do between receiving AI-generated work product and delivering advice to a client, circulating an issues list, negotiating agreement language, or relying on the analysis in connection with a transaction. The program focuses on the practical verification process that transforms machine-generated outputs into client-ready legal work product, including source validation, coverage verification, testing assumptions and omissions, materiality assessment, consequence analysis, and creation of a defensible review record.
Rather than concentrating on extreme examples of hallucinations or generic discussions of AI ethics, the presentation explores the more difficult and increasingly common challenge of professionally plausible AI-generated analysis that appears correct but contains hidden assumptions, omitted context, unsupported conclusions, incomplete coverage, or subtle drafting errors capable of affecting negotiations, risk allocation, diligence conclusions, and transaction outcomes.
Drawing on real-world experience using AI-assisted tools in M&A transactions, the session will discuss practical verification frameworks, recurring failure modes, lessons learned from actual deal workflows, and the evolving role of lawyer judgment as the final quality-control layer before AI-assisted work product reaches a client or counterparty.