Falcon Rappaport & Berkman Hosts FRBuild, Its First Firmwide AI Hackathon

Attorneys and professional staff built working AI solutions for everyday legal workflows in a single day, with on-site support from Harvey.

NEW YORK CITY, NY, UNITED STATES, September 23, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Falcon Rappaport & Berkman (FRB) held FRBuild, the firm’s first firmwide AI hackathon, on August 21 at its New York City office. The full-day event brought attorneys and professional staff together to identify inefficiencies in their daily work and build practical solutions using the firm’s AI and automation tools. FRBuild was open to employees in every role and department, and no coding or technical background was required.

Attorneys, paralegals, and professionals from operations, administration, and marketing formed small cross-functional teams around the workflows they wanted to improve, spent the day building working solutions, and presented live demonstrations at the end of the day. Members of the Legal Engineering and Customer Success teams at Harvey, the firm’s legal AI platform, joined on site to help teams build more complex agents in Harvey.

“FRBuild gave the people who know our workflows best the time and space to rethink how we work,” said Moish Peltz, Co-Managing Partner of Falcon Rappaport & Berkman and Co-Chair of the firm’s Artificial Intelligence Practice Group. “I was blown away by the creativity our people showed and by their ability to build working, time-saving solutions in a single day. It showed what happens when people from across the firm get the right tools and the room to collaborate.”

Teams were judged on the potential impact of their solutions, the quality of their live demonstrations, and how readily their work could be adopted elsewhere in the firm. Prizes were awarded for first place, best demonstration, and biggest time-saver. First place went to Michael Landsman, Julia Salanitro, and Deborah Dyle for an AI agent that helps triage incoming real estate deals.

“It was impressive to see FRB’s teams start with concrete challenges and turn them into working solutions by the end of the day,” said Emily Yoklavich, Customer Success Manager at Harvey, who also served as a guest judge of the event. “Each winning project was grounded in a real need, and the teams showed how thoughtfully applied AI can save time, improve consistency, and create better ways of working across the firm.”

FRBuild is one part of a broader effort to build AI into how FRB operates and how it serves clients. The firm is implementing AI across its practice groups and business operations and has rolled out Harvey to all of its attorneys and professional staff. It is also changing how the firm prices legal work, moving a growing number of matters to subscription and flat-fee arrangements so that clients share in the efficiencies AI creates. It is also experimenting with local compute, including deploying an NVIDIA DGX Spark, to test how AI models running on firm-controlled hardware can support client work.

“FRBuild was one day, but the thinking behind it is how we run the firm,” Peltz added. “Every attorney is getting Harvey, we are pricing more matters in ways that reward efficiency rather than hours, and we are testing what we can run on our own hardware. All of it comes back to delivering better work for clients, faster and at a price that makes sense.”

About Falcon Rappaport & Berkman LLP
Falcon Rappaport & Berkman LLP is a full-service business law firm proudly advising clients on their most complex matters. The firm combines deep legal expertise with a commitment to innovation, integrating AI and technology solutions into its practice to deliver excellent service. FRB partners with clients to develop and achieve their legal, business, and personal objectives. For more information, visit frblaw.com.

Abby Winckler
Falcon Rappaport & Berkman LLP
pr@frblaw.com
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