Legislative technologist · AI in lawmaking · Standards editor · Author
Changing the way the world drafts legislates.
I’m Grant Vergottini. For 24 years I’ve built the systems legislatures use to draft, amend and publish law, helped write the Akoma Ntoso standard, and argued for how AI should and shouldn’t change the way laws are made.
Spoken at
Standards
Active member, OASIS LegalDocML Technical Committee
Helping develop Akoma Ntoso, the international XML standard for parliamentary, legislative and judicial documents. Co-editor of Akoma Ntoso Version 1.0 (2018) and Version 2.0 (AKN 3.1), approved as an OASIS Standard in October 2026.
The book
The Pocket Guide to Akoma Ntoso
A compact, practical guide to the Akoma Ntoso standard for legislative and legal documents: how documents are structured, identified and amended in XML, written for developers and drafting offices putting the standard to work. Reviewed for accuracy by members of the OASIS LegalDocML Technical Committee.
Get a copy on Lulu ↗Topics
AI in lawmakingAI-ready publishing, MCP servers, and keeping drafters in charge
Legislative XML and standardsAkoma Ntoso, the U.S. Code in XML, identifiers, and what makes legislative XML good
Drafting and amendingAmendments in context, bill synthesis, and why legislative redlining isn’t track changes
Transparency and open dataMaking law readable, findable and useful, not just available
The LegisTech fieldModernizing parliaments, the LEX Summer School, Bússola Tech and the people building legislative technology
Building software wellAgile done right, avoiding technology eddies, open source, and the tools of the tradeLatest writing
All essays →- Six Commitments for AI in Legislative DraftingOver the past few months, I’ve written about government’s responsibilities in the age of AI and about how AI is eroding the rigor of legislative drafting. Criticism is… Read more: Six Commitments for AI in Legislative Drafting
- Rethinking Legislative Drafting for the Age of AIRecently there have been a few articles on how AI slop is creating problems for legislative drafting, including this one. I’ve been giving this problem a lot of… Read more: Rethinking Legislative Drafting for the Age of AI
- Government’s Responsibility in the Age of AII’ve recently seen several articles on how AI is affecting government. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and my involvement in Bússola Tech events has… Read more: Government’s Responsibility in the Age of AI
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Recent talks
Watch recordings →All talks →LEX Summer SchoolEvery year since 2010 at the University of Bologna’s Ravenna campus, Italy
Bússola Tech23 sessions as a speaker and panelist in Bússola Tech’s LegisTech program
Publications
All publications →About
An engineer who came to law from chip design
Grant Vergottini has spent more than two decades building the systems legislatures use to draft and amend law, starting with the XML drafting system the California Legislature has used since 2004. He co-founded Xcential, co-edited the OASIS Akoma Ntoso standard, wrote The Pocket Guide to Akoma Ntoso, and speaks regularly on how AI should, and shouldn’t, change the way laws are written.
Beyond workSkydiving, volcanoes, a submarine and a jump off the Stratosphere →
