Henry Sneath and Christopher Jacobs Receive DRI’s G. Duffield Smith Outstanding Publication Award
Houston Harbaugh, P.C. congratulates Directors Henry M. Sneath and Christopher M. Jacobs, who received DRI’s G. Duffield Smith Outstanding Publication Award. They are being honored for their January 2026 For The Defense article, “Defending the Algorithm®: A Bayesian Analysis of AI Litigation and Law.” The award was presented on Friday, October 23, at the 2026 DRI Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
The G. Duffield Smith Award recognizes the most outstanding defense-related writing published by DRI. Selection factors include:
- relevance to DRI members’ practice
- the current importance of the topic
- fresh and imaginative ideas
- depth of research
- quality of writing
The award is part of DRI’s Annual Professional Achievement and Service Awards. These awards honor outstanding performance by state, local, and national defense organizations, DRI law firms, and individual members. Honorees are recognized for their contributions to the defense bar and the civil justice system, or for community and public service that has a positive impact on society.
The award-winning article applies Bayes’ theorem of conditional probability to the fast-developing field of AI litigation and offers a framework for defending AI-related claims. The authors, Sneath and Jacobs, analyzed emerging case law on AI training, copyright, trade secrets, Terms of Service violations, and related liability theories, and use Bayesian concepts to assess litigation risk and forecast where the law is heading. Published by the DRI Center for Law and Public Policy AI Task Force, the article is Part One of the authors’ two-part Defending the Algorithm® series. Part Two, “The AI Daily Routine: An Artificial Intelligence Practicum for Defense Attorneys,” was the cover story of the February 2026 issue.
Henry is Co-Chair of Houston Harbaugh’s Litigation Practice and Chair of its Intellectual Property and AI Practice. He served as President of DRI in 2011–2012, and he created and writes the Defending the Algorithm® blog, podcast, and LinkedIn newsletter. The Best Lawyers in America® named him its 2026 Pittsburgh Lawyer of the Year for Litigation – Patent.
Chris focuses his practice on business litigation, insurance bad faith, and insurance coverage, and advises clients on emerging AI issues, including liability frameworks for AI systems. He was recently named Vice Chair of the DRI Center for Law and Public Policy’s Artificial Intelligence Task Force.
