Emerson Foss

Law

Complex corporate and transactional counsel.
Litigation. Investment advisory.

New York | North Carolina

Practice

Areas of Focus

01

Complex Corporate & Transactional

Entity formation, governance, operating and partnership agreements, joint ventures, acquisitions, and divestitures. Traditional structures and emerging frameworks, across the life of a business.

 02

Complex Litigation

Commercial disputes, partnership and shareholder controversies, construction litigation, and contract claims in state and federal courts and in arbitration. An operator's understanding of the industries the firm serves.

 03

Investment Management

Counsel for start-ups, emerging growth companies, and their investors through financing, fund formation, equity structuring, and ongoing governance. Informed by experience managing investment vehicles and institutional capital.

 04

Family Office & Private Equity

Counsel and board-level advisory for family offices, captive insurance companies, and private equity portfolio structures. The firm's principal spent over a decade as general counsel of a multi-company private equity portfolio.

 05

NYC Scaffold Law

New York Labor Law §§ 240(1) and 241(6) defense, compliance strategy, and risk transfer for owners, general contractors, and construction managers. Informed by hundreds of construction injury claims litigated in New York.

 06

Trusts & Estates (Select)

Estate planning, trust administration, and fiduciary matters for business owners and principals with complex asset portfolios, coordinated with corporate, investment, and tax planning.
The Firm
Emerson FossLaw

Emerson Foss Law represents a select group of businesses, family offices, and their principals in complex corporate, transactional, and litigation matters.

The firm's approach reflects over a decade as general counsel and senior executive of a multi-company private equity portfolio spanning construction, real estate, insurance, and investment operations. That experience informs how the firm evaluates risk, structures transactions, and resolves disputes.

Offices are maintained in New York and Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

Platform

Built by the firm, for its clients

Every material engagement includes a private client workspace.

The Vault

Your digital safe. Your documents, kept by matter and open to a question, so you can see what they say and where each one fits.

Structure Map

Your corporate documents and governance, with what they mean and how they fit together, in a form you can share with finance, accounting, and tax.

The Deal Room Beta

Modern dispute resolution, built to reach an outcome quickly. Non-binding unless the client chooses otherwise.

Connections

Documents and calendar, connected to your own agent if you want one, through a single secure gateway. Private and secure.

Briefings

A full case file read through Rayne Intelligence, in the context of the whole matter. Presently built for New York Labor Law §§ 240(1) and 241(6).

Legal Intelligence

The firm's own intelligence system, built with Rayne Intelligence for large data sets and the connections in them that are hard to see.

About the platform

Attorney
Rygo E. Foss

Rygo E. Foss

Founder & Principal ◆ New York & North Carolina

Rygo Foss founded Emerson Foss Law after almost two decades as General Counsel and Senior Vice President of a privately held enterprise spanning construction, real estate, insurance, and investment operations. He oversaw litigation, transactions, insurance strategy, and regulatory matters across all of it.

He has led acquisitions, formed numerous businesses, governed captive insurance companies, managed a private investment vehicle, and litigated hundreds of disputes in New York. He serves on advisory and governance boards, counsels technology companies on structure and AI, and advises on digital assets and tokenization.

Education

  • The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Advanced Finance
  • University of Minnesota Law School, Juris Doctorate
  • Monfort College of Business, University of N. Colorado, B.S., Finance & Marketing

Certifications & Admissions

  • CFA Institute, Investment Foundations Certificate
  • CFA Institute, Private Equity Certificate
  • Admitted, State of New York
  • Admitted, State of North Carolina

Continuing & Executive Education

MIT, Blockchain & CryptocurrencyUniversity of Chicago, Behavioral FinanceUNC Chapel Hill, Artificial IntelligenceNYU, Real Estate, Construction & Private Equity
Technology

A law firm that builds its own tools. The software and machine-learning systems behind the practice are written and run in-house.

The Platform
Industries

Sector Experience

Construction & Development
Real Estate
Insurance & Captives
Capital Markets
Nonprofit & Foundations
Start-ups & Emerging Growth
AI & Technology
Digital Assets & Tokenization
Insights

Perspectives

Construction In preparation

New York's Scaffold Law: A Primer on Absolute Liability, and What Happens When It's Used Wrong

An on-the-ground view from inside the NYC construction business of what happens when policy doesn't make sense.

Digital Assets In preparation

RWA Asset Tokenization Is Happening. Not Tomorrow, but Right Now

A practitioner's view of the legal structures, regulatory landscape, and commercial opportunities taking shape today.

Computational Law 1 October

Computational Law

The two papers behind the firm's computational law framework, three months in the writing, condensed into one piece and published here on 1 October 2026.

Risk In preparation

Captive Insurance as Strategic Asset

A concept once reserved for the ultra-sophisticated has become one of the only insurance structures that makes sense.

Partners
rayne. Intelligence

Rayne Intelligence is the first product of Rayne Capital LLC, built by this firm and its engineers. The systems behind the workspace and the briefings are the firm's own.

Contact

Inquiries

Email

admin@fosslaw.co

New York

New York, New York

North Carolina

Research Triangle Park, North Carolina

The firm accepts a limited number of new engagements. Inquiries may be sent to the address above or submitted here. Communications are confidential. No attorney-client relationship is formed until a written engagement letter is executed.

Emerson Foss Law/Practice/Family Office & Private Equity

04

Family Office & Private Equity

Counsel and board-level advisory for family offices, captive insurance companies, and private equity portfolio structures.

The work begins from the whole structure: holding entities, operating companies, the captive, the investment vehicle, the trusts above them, and the boards that govern them.

Forms of engagement

Outside general counselA standing relationship: governance calendar, board materials, transaction review, dispute triage, and coordination of specialist counsel.
Structure and transactionFormation or reorganization of holding structures, acquisitions and divestitures of portfolio companies, joint ventures, and the agreements that govern them.
Board and advisoryService on advisory or governance boards, and independent counsel for principals making decisions between their own entities.

Captive insurance

Program design, the indemnity and additional-insured provisions that feed a captive, fronting and reinsurance, regulatory correspondence, and litigation management when hundreds of claims are open at once. Directed as an operator, not only as counsel.

Representative matters

  • Formation and governance of a multi-entity holding structure spanning construction, real estate, insurance, and investment operations.
  • Governance and program design for captive insurance entities, including fronting and reinsurance.
  • Acquisitions and divestitures of operating companies within a private portfolio.
  • Partnership and shareholder controversies among principals, in court and in arbitration.

Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Emerson Foss Law/Platform

Platform

The client workspace

The Vault

Your digital safe

Documents, drafts, entity charts, and correspondence, all under the matter. Ask a question and the answer arrives with the clause and page it rests on.

Illustrative. Names and documents are fictional.

Instruments

What is in the workspace

Every engagement

The Vault

Your digital safe. Documents by matter and folder, executed and draft versions kept apart, open to a question, with each answer marked when counsel has reviewed it.

Governance

Structure Map

Every entity, trust, and ownership interest, drawn from your own documents, with what each one means and how it fits. Who may sign, who must consent. Shared with your finance, accounting, and tax teams.

Transactions Beta

The Deal Room

Modern dispute resolution and closings: shared disclosures, issue-by-issue negotiation, private caucus, and a term sheet drawn from what was agreed. Non-binding unless the client chooses otherwise.

Agents

Connections

Documents, calendar, and signature, connected to your own agent if you want one, through one gateway you control, with a record of every access. Private and secure. Dockets, email, and research next. Agent access

Case review

Briefings

A full case file in, a reviewed briefing out: chronology, parties and indemnity chain, liability, medical synthesis, damages, and recommended actions. Built with Rayne Intelligence, presently for New York Labor Law §§ 240(1) and 241(6). About Briefings

Litigation

Legal Intelligence

The firm's own intelligence system, built with Rayne Intelligence: decisions, judges, and fact patterns, searchable across data sets too large to read by hand. Presently built for New York Labor Law §§ 240(1) and 241(6). Commercial litigation next.

Connections

Ready for agents Beta

Sources the firm relies on connect through one gateway, with the permissions a person would have and a record of every access.

Privilege is the point. Attorney-client privilege and work product are the first things at risk when a client runs its matters through a general-purpose assistant. Here, matters stay inside the firm's environment. An agent reaches only what a person on that matter could reach, and every access is written down. Nothing is used to train anyone's model.

In progress: a computational reading of New York's scaffold law, line by line, to be released to clients and stakeholders in October 2026.

Data corporaCurated legal data sets the firm builds and opens to search. New York scaffold law is the first; more silos follow.In progress
DocumentsThe Vault, and Google Drive where a client keeps the record.Connected
CalendarGoogle Calendar, and the deadlines that sit on each matter.Connected
EmailChronologies and time entries drawn from correspondence.Planned
SignatureThe firm's own signing. The document is fingerprinted, a signature page and an audit certificate appended, and the executed copy filed as a new version that supersedes the original.Connected
Legal researchOpinions, statutes, and judge profiles, checked against the firm's own intelligence.Planned
BillingStatements from workspace activity; card, ACH, and stablecoin settlement.Connected
Client systemsWith consent, a client's own agent connects to its matters under the same rules and audit trail.By arrangement
Mission

Representation that was out of reach, within reach

Machine learning in the hands of a practicing attorney gives a client the kind of representation that used to require a white-shoe firm and a budget to match, delivered in a modern, efficient, and cost-effective way. The firm is built on value: it does well when its clients do well, and every system here exists to make that possible.

A benchmark, not a replacement

The machine gives the practice area a reference: the same reading of a file, applied the same way every time. An experienced attorney takes it from there. Nothing here stands in for counsel, and nothing is released as counsel's work product until counsel has read it.

Your documents stay yours

Stored in the firm's environment, never used to train a model, retained per the engagement letter.

Every access recorded

Agents act with a matter's permissions and nothing more. What was read, when, and for whom is part of the file.

Built by Rayne Intelligence, the first product of Rayne Capital LLC, in-house.

Disclosure

Technology, disclosure, and privilege

Emerson Foss Law uses machine learning and artificial intelligence in its work: to read and organize the documents in a matter, to prepare drafts, and to research. It does so only with the client's knowledge and permission. Before any confidential information is processed by such a system, the firm explains what will be used and why, and the client agrees to it. The terms for each matter are set out in the engagement agreement.

When a matter's information is processed by an outside model, that model runs under an enterprise agreement on commercial terms, under which the provider does not train on the firm's data and retains it only as those terms allow. The firm does not use consumer or public AI tools for client matters.

A client may ask that nothing leave the firm's own systems. For those matters the firm runs a model locally, with no data sent to any outside service. A local model is less capable than the large hosted ones, and the client decides with that in mind.

The work the firm delivers is its lawyers' work. A model may prepare a draft or point to a source, but a lawyer reviews it, corrects it, and is responsible for it. Nothing leaves the firm on a machine's authority, and the firm does not rely on machine output a lawyer has not checked.

These are the terms on which the firm uses this technology at all. Their purpose is to protect the client's confidences and privilege.

Emerson Foss Law/Briefings

For defense counsel and carriers

Litigation intelligence, reviewed by counsel

New York Labor Law §§ 240(1) and 241(6) matters. You submit the case file. You receive a briefing.

Since the beginning of 2026, this firm and Rayne Intelligence have been building a computational model of New York's scaffold law: a line-by-line reading of what each decision holds and why it carries weight.

What that buys you is a benchmark. Every case gets the same standard reading, in the same form, as a starting point rather than a verdict; an experienced scaffold law practitioner takes it from there. Take it as a written briefing, or as an interactive file you can question directly.

How it works

SubmitUpload the case folder as it exists on your system. Nothing is processed until the matter is accepted.
AcceptThe principal reviews the submission, clears conflicts, and accepts or declines.
DeliverA written briefing, read and approved by counsel, delivered to your private workspace.

What the briefing contains

  • Chronology, sourced to the document each event came from
  • Parties, witnesses, and the chain of indemnity and additional-insured status
  • Liability under §240(1), §241(6) with Industrial Code predicates, and §200
  • Medical synthesis, including inconsistencies across records and testimony
  • Damages and reserve view
  • Recommended discovery, motions, and tender opportunities

Accepted selectively and priced per matter. Request access

Emerson Foss Law/Contact

Inquiries

Submit an inquiry

Each inquiry is read by the principal. Naming the other parties allows a conflicts check before the first conversation. Please do not send privileged material.

All communications are treated as confidential. No attorney-client relationship is formed until a written engagement letter is executed.

Received.

The inquiry is with the principal, who reads each one. You will hear back within one business day. No attorney-client relationship is formed until a written engagement letter is executed.

Emerson Foss Law/Agent access

Agents

The firm, as a data source

Part of the firm's work is published as structured data. AI agents connect to it directly, cite it, and can refer a matter when the fit is right.

Connect Launching Q4 2026 to Q1 2027

One endpoint, open to any agent

The firm runs a Model Context Protocol server. Any agent that speaks MCP can add it as a source. Public resources need no key; registered and client tiers use one.

Every response carries the firm's name, the resource it came from, and the date it was last reviewed by counsel.

# Claude Code
claude mcp add fosslaw https://mcp.fosslaw.co

# Claude Desktop, or any MCP client
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fosslaw": { "url": "https://mcp.fosslaw.co" }
  }
}

The endpoint launches Q4 2026 to Q1 2027.

Resources

What an agent can reach

Each resource is a set of tools and documents an agent can query. Public resources are read-only and rate-limited.

Scaffold Law datasetNew York Labor Law §§ 240(1) and 241(6) decisions with the firm's computational analysis: outcomes by court and judge, Industrial Code predicates, indemnity chains, damages, and reserves. Searchable by fact pattern.In preparation
Judicial intelligenceJudge-level tendencies on summary judgment, discovery, and damages in construction cases, built from NYSCEF and county dockets.Planned
Authority catalogStatutes, Industrial Code sections, and the leading opinions crosswalked by issue, with the firm's annotations.Planned
WritingThe firm's published insights as structured text, with citations resolved.With the site
Firm profilePractice areas, admissions, offices, and an intake schema, so an agent can judge fit and refer a matter with the facts organized.With the site
Client mattersDocuments, structures, dockets, and statements for an engaged client, scoped to the matter and logged. Client key required.Client tier
Access

Three tiers

Open

Any agent, no key
  • Public resources, read-only
  • Rate-limited
  • Attribution required in output
  • Firm profile and referral schema

Registered

Attorneys, carriers, researchers
  • Everything in Open, higher limits
  • Full Scaffold Law dataset
  • Briefing requests through the gateway
  • Named contact at the firm

Client

Engaged clients and their agents
  • Matter-scoped access to the workspace
  • Per-matter permissions
  • Every access recorded in the file
  • Governed by the engagement letter
Discovery

How agents find the firm

Agents don't browse. They read manifests. The site publishes a machine-readable card describing the firm, its resources, and how to reach it. An agent researching a Labor Law question finds the dataset. An agent helping a company find counsel finds the profile and the intake schema.

Answer with attribution

Every result names Emerson Foss Law and the resource, wherever the answer appears.

Refer with structure

An agent hands the firm a matter with parties, jurisdiction, and facts organized, and a conflicts pre-check run.

Stay reviewed

Nothing in a public resource is published until counsel has reviewed it. Each record carries its review date.

# fosslaw.co/.well-known/agent-card.json
{
  "name": "Emerson Foss Law Firm PLLC",
  "description": "Complex corporate, litigation, and investment counsel. New York and North Carolina.",
  "mcp": "https://mcp.fosslaw.co",
  "resources": [
    "scaffold-law-dataset",
    "authority-catalogue",
    "firm-profile",
    "intake"
  ],
  "practice": ["corporate", "litigation",
               "investment-management",
               "family-office", "nyc-scaffold-law"],
  "admitted": ["NY", "NC"],
  "contact": "admin@fosslaw.co",
  "terms": "https://fosslaw.co/agents#terms"
}
Terms

Public resources are general information, not legal advice, and create no attorney-client relationship. Attribution to the firm is required. Client resources are confidential and governed by the engagement letter. All access is logged. Request a registered key.

Emerson Foss Law/Client sign in

Client workspace

Sign in

Access comes with an engagement. The workspace is at app.fosslaw.co.

Continue to the workspace

Not yet a client? Submit an inquiry.