When the AI Acts: A Case Study in Agentic AI, Legal Ethics, and Client Risk

Maryam M. Meseha, Founding Partner and Co-Chair | Pierson Ferdinand LLP

Maryam M. Meseha is a Founding Partner of Pierson Ferdinand LLP and Co-Chair of the firm’s Privacy and Data Protection group. She counsels AI developers, deployers, and enterprise adopters on artificial intelligence governance, including algorithmic accountability, automated decision-making, transparency obligations, and risk mitigation. She pairs that work with a data privacy and security, crisis and risk management, and corporate compliance practice that serves clients from high-growth startups to global enterprises.

• Education & Credentials

Ms. Meseha earned her J.D. from the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University in 2011 and her B.S. in Diplomacy and International Relations from Seton Hall University in 2008. She has held the IAPP CIPP/US privacy certification since 2022. She is admitted to practice in New Jersey, New York, and North Carolina, and before the U.S. District Courts for the District of New Jersey, the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and the Western District of North Carolina.

• Recognition & Leadership

Chief named Ms. Meseha a 2025 winner of its inaugural New Era of Leadership Awards, recognizing her advocacy for equitable AI development and her work connecting women in technology and law with mentorship and funding. North Carolina Lawyers Weekly named her one of its 50 Most Influential Women of 2024, and The Best Lawyers in America® has included her for Commercial Litigation in its 2025 through 2027 editions. At Pierson Ferdinand, she leads a multidisciplinary team of privacy and data protection attorneys.

• Professional Involvement

Ms. Meseha speaks frequently on AI governance, cybersecurity, and responsible technology development, including as a Legalweek speaker, and she presented “Cybersecurity Strategies for Small and Midsize Businesses” to CIANJ in 2022. Her commentary on AI regulation and data protection has appeared in Reuters, Yahoo Finance, Corporate Counsel, the National Law Journal, Legal Tech News, and the Daily Business Review. In 2026, S&P Global quoted her on how AI tools are changing trade secret protection, and Risk Management Magazine quoted her on the risks of AI washing.

• Experience

Ms. Meseha designs AI governance frameworks that let clients adopt new technology while staying ahead of emerging regulation, and she helps organizations build internal policies, manage third-party risk, and structure compliance programs. Her writing tracks the same issues, including “The Future of Law: Harnessing AI Without Compromising Integrity” (Daily Business Review, 2024), “What’s the Harm? Establishing Standing in Cybersecurity Class Actions” (New Jersey Law Journal, 2022), and client alerts on Washington’s My Health My Data Act (2024) and California’s CIPA reform (2026). Before joining Pierson Ferdinand, she practiced at FisherBroyles, LLP and Sedgwick LLP.

Joseph Schramm, Partner, Litigation; Deputy General Counsel and Director of Conflicts | Pierson Ferdinand LLP

Joseph Schramm is a litigation partner at Pierson Ferdinand LLP, where he also serves as the firm’s Deputy General Counsel and Director of Conflicts. From 2014 to 2022, he sat on the New Jersey Supreme Court District IIIB Ethics Committee. A business trial lawyer based in Princeton, he represents plaintiffs and defendants, from large corporations to small businesses and individuals, in complex commercial disputes before federal and state trial and appellate courts.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Schramm earned his J.D., cum laude, from Rutgers School of Law – Camden, where he was a Dean’s Academic Excellence Scholar and a Merck Patent Fellowship recipient. He holds a B.S. in Chemistry, magna cum laude, from The College of New Jersey. He is admitted in New Jersey and Pennsylvania; before the U.S. District Courts for the District of New Jersey, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and the Northern District of Illinois; and before the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Third, Eleventh, and District of Columbia Circuits. He is also a Registered Foreign Lawyer in England and Wales.

• Recognition & Leadership

Alongside his eight years of service on the District IIIB Ethics Committee and his firm leadership roles as Deputy General Counsel and Director of Conflicts, Mr. Schramm was named a New Jersey Super Lawyers Rising Star from 2014 through 2018.

• Professional Involvement

Before law school, Mr. Schramm worked in the pharmaceutical industry, developing drug formulations for preclinical studies and phase I clinical trials. He co-authored “Progress Towards a DNA-based Model System for Studying Electron Spin-Spin Interactions,” published in Biophysical Chemistry in 2007.

• Experience

Mr. Schramm handles contract and UCC claims, construction disputes and liens, intellectual property infringement, defamation, environmental torts, insurance coverage, restrictive covenants, and shareholder and partnership disputes. He won reinstatement of a public contract award for his client before the New Jersey Supreme Court in Barrick v. New Jersey, 218 N.J. 247 (2014), and secured monetary damages and injunctive relief for a publicly traded logistics company after a week-long post-merger arbitration. His work also includes defending putative class actions, recovering class action defense costs from insurers, Hatch-Waxman patent litigation for generic pharmaceutical companies, and Robinson-Patman Act defense. Before Pierson Ferdinand, Mr. Schramm was a partner at FisherBroyles, LLP, a senior associate in Fox Rothschild LLP’s litigation department, and an associate in Duane Morris LLP’s trial practice group.

SESSION 1 – The Lawyers’ Agents: Ethics, Sanctions, and Privilege | Maryam M. Meseha & Joseph Schramm | 12:00pm – 1:00pm

This session tests the Model Rules against agentic tools that research, draft, triage, and review with limited human involvement. Through four scenes, attendees see how competence, confidentiality, supervision, candor, and fee obligations apply when an AI agent, rather than a lawyer, takes the action. Attendees will leave with a practical framework for building AI use policies that include permissions, logging, approval gates, and human review.

BREAK | 1:00pm – 1:10pm

SESSION 2 – The Client’s Agents: Regulation, Governance, and Liability | Maryam M. Meseha & Joseph Schramm | 1:10pm – 2:10pm

Meridian launches “Mira,” an AI agent that recommends products, processes returns and refunds, and uses customer health and purchase data. This session follows Mira from the launch review through a regulatory inquiry and class action. Attendees will leave with a deployment checklist for in-house counsel and an advising and contracting checklist for outside counsel.