Baretz+Brunelle, the growth advisory firm to elite businesses in the legal industry, today announced the launch of LexFusion Labs, expanding its LexFusion innovation capabilities to align with a fundamental shift in how AI is created and deployed across law firms and their corporate clients. As AI development moves from centralized IT teams to the front lines of legal work, lawyers and legal business leaders are increasingly shaping the tools they use in real time, bringing advanced capabilities directly into daily legal work.
To lead LexFusion Labs, B+B welcomes Dan Szabo, one of the profession’s most influential technologists and visionaries, who joins the firm as a partner and its first chief innovation officer. LexFusion Labs will advise on off-the-shelf and custom AI applications, and accelerate the rollout, governance, and adoption strategies around them—addressing the hardest part of AI in legal services: deploying the right solutions and ensuring they are trusted, secure, and deliver enduring value inside complex, changing organizations.
Szabo’s AI engineering expertise and executive leadership were honed inside two of the legal industry’s most innovative Am Law firms—Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, where he led the firm’s nationally recognized innovation team, De Novo, and Littler Mendelson P.C., where he held senior technology roles. He has been a key contributor to multiple first-of-their-kind enterprise software solutions adopted by major Am Law 100 firms. At Davis Wright Tremaine, Szabo led the development of Prose, an AI writing assistant named the Financial Times’ 2024 Top North American Innovation in Digitizing Legal Practice, and Haven, an AI platform that streamlines asylum applications that earned ILTA’s 2025 Transformative Project of the Year, the second time his work received that honor. He also spearheaded the development of DWT.AI, Davis Wright Tremaine’s custom chatbot adopted by more than 70% of the firm—the industry’s most successful AI deployment to date.
“Dan’s expertise accelerates adoption of AI applications that streamline how highly specific legal work is executed,” said Mike McNamara, CEO of Baretz+Brunelle. “By working directly with lawyers and legal business executives, LexFusion Labs will fast track B+B’s capabilities to advise on how the design, development, implementation, and adoption of AI will drive real, measurable growth in legal.”
LexFusion Labs meets the growing demand for tailored AI that eliminates inefficiencies in specialized legal tasks while working alongside powerful off-the-shelf tools. Instead of making organizations choose between buying technology or building it themselves, LexFusion Labs bridges the gap—helping firms and corporate legal departments collaborate more effectively, achieve shared efficiency, and free internal teams to focus on higher-value priorities.
“Bringing Dan into B+B to lead LexFusion Labs is just perfect,” said Joe Borstein, B+B partner and co-founder of LexFusion, which B+B acquired in February 2025. “We can now serve the legal industry at the absolute pinnacle, supporting top legal technology innovators in growing their businesses and helping law firms and corporate counsel close critical gaps in the delivery of legal services.”
B+B’s LexFusion innovation portfolio now encompasses three interconnected capabilities:
“Firms and clients face real operational friction in times of rapid change,” said Szabo. “Our job is to directly remove that friction with strategic guidance and execution around AI tools that help firms create differentiated services and new revenue streams, and reduce costs for clients. B+B’s unparalleled reach, relationships, and deep understanding of client needs make it the ideal place to accelerate that impact.”
Szabo has directly led major initiatives with in-house legal teams at prominent Fortune 50 companies across industries, delivering transformative technology and process outcomes. His executive leadership track record also includes guiding high-stakes projects such as law firm mergers, major organizational restructurings, and nationwide hardware and software technology rollouts, even more powerfully positioning B+B to advise clients during eras of profound change.
Szabo began his career as a communications sergeant in the U.S. Army, where he served in Iraq and taught himself to code at night between duty shifts.