AI & Emerging Tech Law
Law and policy for the frontier of AI.
I'm Janel Thamkul, an AI and emerging technology lawyer. For more than fifteen years I've helped the teams building transformative technology navigate the legal and ethical questions that come with it — most recently as Deputy General Counsel at Anthropic, and before that leading product counsel for Google AI.
Original artwork · Monkeyfish Studios
Where I focus
Two decades of legal practice, the last decade spent almost entirely at the edge of emerging technology.
Frontier AI governance
Building governance for AI systems of every kind — from co-leading Google's facial recognition framework to developing and advising on governance for foundation models and the systems built on them — balancing rapid R&D with safety, ethics, and emerging regulation.
Generative AI & copyright
Content provenance, licensing, and intellectual property under the DMCA, the EU Copyright Directive, and a fast-moving body of case law.
Privacy & biometrics
Facial recognition, on-device processing, and data protection — including frameworks like the GDPR and Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act.
Regulation & risk
Company-wide risk strategy for AI research and external collaborations, including readiness for global AI regulation, like the EU AI Act, and product liability.
Experience
Anthropic
2023 — 2026Deputy General Counsel
Built and led the legal teams supporting the company's commercialization efforts — research, product, commercial, litigation, regulatory, employment and IP — from the earliest days through rapid scaling, steering Anthropic through some of the most consequential legal questions in frontier AI.
Senior Product Counsel & Legal Manager, Google AI
Led the AI research product counsel team across a variety of emerging technologies, including generative AI, biometrics, computer vision, on device processing, robotics, hardware, and responsible innovation.
Farella Braun + Martel
2008 — 2015Litigation Counsel
IP and business litigation, international arbitration, product liability, trademark prosecution and defense, and DMCA / CDA 230 safe-harbor defense.
Honors
Burton Awards — “Legends in Law”
2026Named among the nation's finest general counsel — and the first Deputy General Counsel ever recognized in the award's history. Honored at the Library of Congress (co-sponsored by the American Bar Association).
Education
J.D.
UC Berkeley School of Law
B.A., Fine Arts
UCLA
A.A., Fashion Design
FIDM
Speaking & writing
Sharing how legal and policy thinking can keep pace with the technology it governs.
Madrona GC Summit
Panelist · May 2025An all-star panel of AI legal leaders at Madrona's annual General Counsel Summit.
Off the clock, I make art.
The same curiosity that pulls me toward hard, unmapped problems shows up in my work — dense, surreal ink worlds, linocut prints, and oil studies. It keeps the other half of my brain awake.
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