About
AI SIGMA is an independent, practitioner-led initiative focused on the deployment layer of AI governance. We do not seek to replace public standards bodies, regulators, bar associations, or technical labs. We translate emerging governance frameworks into contractable, assessable, and practitioner-readable forms.
AI SIGMA is a practitioner-led standards initiative convened by attorneys, technologists, and policy professionals who work at the AI deployment layer.
Founding-cohort members are the practitioners writing AI deployment contracts, building AI compliance programs, and advising boards on responsible AI adoption — alongside the organizations that employ them.
AI SIGMA is being organized as a 501(c)(6) trade association under United States federal tax law. Based in Marin County, California. Founded by practicing attorneys.
AI SIGMA is developing three lines of work, on a single principle: that AI governance becomes real only when it is contractable, assessable, and practiced.
A versioned, drop-in library of contract language for the procurement, deployment, and ongoing operation of frontier AI systems. The clauses are being mapped to the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, ISO/IEC 42001, and the EU GPAI Code of Practice. Designed to be adopted directly, or adapted, by counsel for AI vendors, deployers, and procurement organizations. v0.1 is the first public work product — read the project →
A public criteria set for evaluating AI deployment readiness in regulated industries, covering procurement diligence, ongoing monitoring, and incident-response practices. Conformance criteria will be versioned and tied to the operative clauses of the model contract library. Future certification may follow after public criteria, governance, and assessor processes are established.
Professional standards for the legal, technical, and policy practitioners operating at the AI deployment layer — competency framework, ethics guidance, and continuing-education recommendations designed to interlock with bar-association CLE, technical certifications, and policy-school programs.
AI SIGMA does not duplicate the work of intergovernmental bodies. CAISI, the UK AI Security Institute, the EU AI Office, OECD/GPAI, and the United Nations Independent International Scientific Panel on AI set the standards and conduct the science. We translate that work into the contractable, assessable, and practitioner-readable forms that move it into the deployment layer.
We do not duplicate the work of frontier-lab consortia. The Frontier Model Forum, MLCommons, and similar bodies handle the consortium-side coordination among labs. We complement that work, rather than reproduce it, by addressing the practitioner-and-deployer population that lab consortia do not.
Bar associations provide professional education and legal community. AI SIGMA is designed as a cross-functional standards initiative for legal, technical, procurement, compliance, policy, and product stakeholders — the full set of professionals who shape an AI deployment, not just the lawyers.
The Founding Co-Chair convened AI SIGMA from the Beverly Hills Bar Association's AI & the Law Section, and the two are conceptually allied. AI SIGMA is independent and legally separate.
The two-body model: ICAO sets the international standards through Annexes to the Chicago Convention; IATA operationalizes the commercial layer through industry-side practice. The two bodies are formally distinct and substantively complementary.
The Chicago Convention of 1944 created the conditions for global commercial aviation. IATA followed in 1945 and has spent eighty years building the contractual, operational, and professional substrate that translates ICAO standards into flight schedules, baggage handling, fuel hedging, and ticketing.
The analogous moment for AI is now. CAISI, the UK AI Security Institute, the EU AI Office, and the United Nations Independent International Scientific Panel on AI are the ICAO-side. The IATA-side does not yet exist.
The analogy is partial. Aviation regulates physical artifacts on multi-year cycles; AI regulates software systems on multi-week cycles. AI SIGMA's standards mechanism is designed to operate at the pace of the technology, not the pace of treaty-making.
The standards that govern an industry's first century are written in its first decade. We are in that decade.
AI SIGMA was convened by Marc Hoag, the inaugural Chair of the Beverly Hills Bar Association's AI & the Law Section. He serves as Founding Co-Chair of the Institute.
Founding Co-Chair, AI SIGMA
Chair, AI & the Law Section, Beverly Hills Bar Association
Marc Hoag is a California-licensed attorney and the founder of Hoag Law.ai, where he serves as fractional General Counsel and product counsel to AI- and SaaS-first companies navigating contracts, data, and fast-moving regulation. His practice spans MSAs and commercial frameworks, DPAs and privacy programs (GDPR), AI governance and risk allocation (EU AI Act), and IP and AI data ownership — counsel aligned to how modern software products are actually built and scaled, from product design through commercial deployment.
Marc is the inaugural Chair of the Beverly Hills Bar Association's AI & the Law Section and serves as a Founding Co-Chair of AI SIGMA. He frequently presents CLEs on AI legal issues. His analysis on AI training and copyright was published in The Marin Lawyer (June 2025) and is available on SSRN.
Before practicing law full-time, Marc was a venture-backed founder and product manager. He has shipped software, negotiated enterprise agreements from the operator side, and hosted a 200-episode podcast on autonomous vehicles that ranked #1 organically on Google for years. He recently launched Axiomic, LLC, an AI-first web and iOS application development company. He is a member of the Founders Network.
Marc was admitted to the California bar in 2008. He holds an economics degree from UCLA, with extensive coursework in physics, chemistry, and mathematics. He is based in Marin County, California.
Marc Hoag
Analysis of AI training and copyright doctrine. The Marin Lawyer, June 2025. Available on SSRN.
Marc Hoag
Continuing legal education presentations on AI legal issues, Beverly Hills Bar Association and other invited venues.
AI SIGMA is based in Marin County, California. Membership and leadership are international.
