Every year Karsun welcomes interns to our offices to collaborate, innovate and build alongside our team members. This year some of our Summer Interns supported corporate and operational teams. One of these was Daksh Badri, a rising sophomore at Columbia University majoring in Economics-Political Science and Medical Humanities.
Daksh served as a Legal Intern in Karsun’s Contracts Department and his mentor Jennifer Cummings, Senior Director. In this role, he developed a comprehensive understanding of the legal framework which Karsun operates as a federal contractor and commercial partner. That work served as a foundation for his development of his Intern Project provided by his mentor the Karsun AI Contract Reviewer (KAICR). This innovative AI program independently analyzes and redlines responses to assist contract personnel. Notably, his work represents one of the first concrete deployments of an AI agent within Karsun’s corporate departments. As a result, his work was featured in our September Innovation Town Hall.
After earning his Bachelor’s degree, Daksh plans to attend law school, focused on the intersection of law and ethics in the coming age of AI automation to help organizations navigate complex legal accountability and ethical challenges while leveraging emerging technologies to improve efficiency, accessibility, and decision-making.
Could you share a little bit about the project you worked on as part of this internship? What challenge does it solve? What technologies and tools are you using?
During my time at Karsun, I had the opportunity to work under the mentorship of Jennifer Cummings, Senior Director of the Contracts department, whose leadership spans Federal Procurement, Contract Law, Contract Development, and Business Development. This experience provided me with first-hand exposure to the legal and operational complexities of a growing technology company.
Building on that foundation, I designed and developed KAICR. This AI-powered review agent is designed to analyze Non-Disclosure Agreements, identify legal risks, and recommend revisions to contractual clauses based on a tiered framework aligned with Karsun’s business objectives and values provided by my Mentor and former NDA revisions. By streamlining the initial contract review process, the tool helps improve consistency, efficiency, and decision-making while supporting the legal team’s review of NDAs. Karsun plans to leverage KAICR as part of its NDA review process and is exploring opportunities to expand its use to additional contract types, such as teaming and subcontractor agreements. Contributing to a solution with the potential to enhance Karsun’s legal operations has been an incredibly rewarding experience and sparked my interest in the intersection of law, AI, and business strategy.
What was your favorite part about interning at Karsun’s Contracts Department?
My favorite part of interning at Karsun was the opportunity to continuously experiment, learn, and grow under the mentorship and guidance of the company’s open and collaborative culture. My project in nature allowed me to collaborate with departments outside of just Contracts, and it helped me to feel comfortable during my first few weeks, as I was encouraged to ask questions while also being given the independence and creative freedom to explore all possible options. Karsun’s collaborative culture allowed me to better understand the requirements of the Contracts department, its obligations to the company and risk mitigation as well as steps to take to develop a meaningful and efficient product that addresses those needs.
What is your biggest takeaway from your experience as an intern at Karsun?
The biggest takeaway from my experience at Karsun was gaining practical, hands-on exposure to the intersection of law and AI, which is such a unique domain: we all know that AI will be incorporated into the legal field, yet there haven’t been widespread steps by lawyers and companies to understand, regulate, and train AI to best suit legal needs. Jennifer provided invaluable mentorship and guidance, while the Karsun Innovation Center (KIC) team provided me with the resources and knowledge necessary to develop KAICR.
I am deeply grateful to Karsun’s Co-Founders Sundar Vaidyanathan and Kartik Mecheri for the opportunity to work at Karsun and to contribute to such a dynamic company that has strengthened my passion for combining legal expertise, emerging technologies, and business innovation. These experiences not only enhanced my professional skills but also made my internship a truly rewarding and memorable experience.