Njeri Mutura, a top legal executive at Microsoft Corp.’s Irvine hub, says artificial intelligence is exciting but also creates a big responsibility for lawyers.
“It’s a very interesting time to be at the intersection of law and technology,” Mutura says.
Mutura grew up in Kenya and finished the latter part of high school in Canada, before obtaining her law degree from the University of Windsor in Canada and setting out on her legal career.
She is now the assistant general counsel of strategic pursuits and complex technology transactions for the Americas at Microsoft. Mutura was honored at the Business Journal’s General Counsel Awards in the Special Counsel category almost a year ago at the Irvine Marriott.
“There’s a large responsibility on the part of legal professionals to guide and mitigate the risks associated with not engaging responsibly with technology,” the Microsoft lawyer told the Business Journal.
“My team and I have had increasing engagement with transactions involving emerging technologies, particularly AI.”
Her team is dispersed across the Americas.
Mutura and her team spend a lot of time providing guidance around the legal intricacies of generative AI such as Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI and Copilot offerings.
They also engage in conversations on Microsoft’s recently launched Copilot Copyright Commitment.
Following her time at a leading Canadian full-service firm, Mutura worked with both startups and large technology companies like Oracle before she went on to lead her own consulting practice.
“I moved back to Kenya for a while,” she said, where she was part of a team that built up the tech, media and entertainment practice at Bowmans international law firm in Nairobi in 2011 and 2012. She then went on to be the first member of the Microsoft legal team in East and Southern Africa.
Mutura eventually headed back over the Atlantic, settled in California, having passed the state bar examination several years prior and continued her work at the intersection of law and technology.