Pallavi Wahi‘s latest career move is both a professional leap and a personal bookend.

Wahi, a veteran lawyer and business community leader, came to Seattle 25 years ago as an immigrant with no local network. She built a career and civic presence, and is now helping bring a nationally prominent firm deeper into the city’s legal and innovation ecosystem.

Wahi recently joined Arnold & Porter to launch its Seattle office and lead strategic growth on the West Coast, following a long tenure at K&L Gates, where she was a managing partner.

Arnold & Porter signed a lease in downtown’s U.S. Bank Center and wants to add at least 60 lawyers in Seattle within two years. Planting a flag in the Pacific Northwest is squarely aimed at the region’s innovation economy — and the rising regulatory complexity around it.

“Arnold and Porter has a very deep regulatory bench, and that is really what makes them so much of a differentiator in the market,” Wahi said. The firm’s specialties span healthcare, technology, manufacturing, cross-border trade, FDA and antitrust work — areas where she said corporate clients increasingly need strategic and practical guidance as rules evolve.

The view on AI

Arnold & Porter says it’s using generative AI for document review, legal research, collaboration, litigation prep, transactional diligence, and regulatory review. The firm uses tools such as Microsoft Copilot, Anthropic Claude Enterprise, and ChatGPT Enterprise alongside in-house models.

Wahi described the firm as “very open to accepting and moving forward with new technology,” including pilots that use AI tools to support client work.

But she also draws a clear boundary for the legal profession: while AI can help lawyers, it can’t replace them.

“We have to be careful that it doesn’t substitute for actual legal work,” Wahi said. “You should not be filing briefs or doing anything which is generated by AI. You are the author — and the minute you forget that … is when trouble comes.”

Bullish on Seattle

The city, Wahi said, has become more welcoming, entrepreneurial and dynamic over the past quarter-century, and remains “an incredible incubator of change.”

“There’s an energy here,” Wahi said. “There’s a fabric of electricity.”

She added: “This city makes you bigger than you are. I truly believe that the reason for the success of many in this city is because of Seattle.”

Wahi has spent much of her legal career arguing cases and advising companies. Her other job has been to push Seattle’s business community to look beyond its own walls. She has done so by example, plugging into the boards of the Seattle Chamber, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Woodland Park Zoo, Seattle Rep, the King County Bar Foundation and more. She even participated in a dance competition to raise money for Plymouth Housing.

Her message to other leaders in Seattle is straightforward: participation matters.

“As a lawyer, I do believe I have a role to be a community leader, to really try and show up in ways that can help,” she said. “We need to show up for more than doing our jobs. We need to show up for each other in ways that make sense to ourselves.”