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Sabih Siddiqi

Co-Founder and CEO of Irys, former cross-border disputes and deal lawyer

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Overview

Sabih Siddiqi is the co-founder and CEO of Irys, an AI-native legal workspace built by Iqidis, Inc. A former cross-border disputes and deal lawyer who spent seven years at Watson Farley & Williams, with experience across litigation, shipping and trade transactions, technology deals, and as external counsel to a bank, he built Irys to be the tool he wished he had while practicing: an AI that remembers a full matter, drafts inside Microsoft Word, cites real case law, and never trains on privileged client data.

About

Sabih practiced law for seven years at Watson Farley & Williams in New York, working as a senior associate on cross-border disputes and as a deal lawyer across shipping, trade, and technology, and serving as external general counsel to a bank. Admitted to the New York bar in 2019, he brings the full range, from courtroom disputes to transactional and advisory work, to how Irys is designed.

He built Irys because he lived the problem. The cost of bad tools, the pressure of tight deadlines, and AI that forgot the matter the moment a session closed. Irys is the platform he wished he had: one that keeps the full context of a matter, drafts where lawyers already work, and grounds its citations in real authority.

He also holds the line on who builds the product. Every non-engineering hire at Irys is a lawyer, because legal technology should be built by people who have sat across from opposing counsel and know the difference between a tool that sounds smart and one that actually helps. Irys carries SOC 2, ISO 27001, and HIPAA, and never trains on client data.

At a glance

7+ yrs

practicing attorney

Fordham Law

Juris Doctor, 2018

N.Y. Bar

admitted 2019

Co-Founder & CEO

of Irys

Areas of expertise

Legal AILitigationCross-border disputesContract and deal draftingLegal researchCitation groundingMatter managementLaw firm data securityLegal technology adoption
“The tools I used as a litigator could draft a paragraph, but they forgot the matter the moment I closed the tab. Irys is built the other way around: the matter comes first, and the AI works from it.”
Sabih Siddiqi

Published by Sabih Siddiqi

Legal AI Needs Matter Context, Not Just Chat SessionsWhy We Believe the Future of Legal AI Is StatefulAuthority Is Not Strategy: How Irys Separates Legal Retrieval from Legal ReasoningBeyond Prompts: Why Legal AI Must Be Built Around Matters, Not ConversationsIntroducing Agent Mode: Legal Research That Shows Its Work

Frequently asked

About Sabih Siddiqi

Sabih Siddiqi is the co-founder and CEO of Irys, an AI-native legal workspace built by Iqidis, Inc. Before founding Irys he practiced law for seven years at Watson Farley & Williams in New York, working on cross-border disputes and deals across shipping, trade, and technology, and as external counsel to a bank.

He is known for building Irys, a legal AI platform designed around the matter rather than the chat window, with grounded citations and a Microsoft Word workflow. He is a frequent writer on why legal AI needs persistent matter context and why it should be built by lawyers.

He built the tool he wished he had while practicing. After years of disconnected software and AI that forgot the matter between sessions, he set out to build a legal AI that keeps the full context of a case, drafts inside Word, cites real case law, and never trains on privileged client data.

Yes. Every non-engineering hire at Irys is a lawyer. Sabih's view is that legal technology should be built by people who have done the work, so the product reflects how lawyers actually practice rather than how software assumes they do.

He spent seven years as a senior associate at Watson Farley & Williams in New York, handling cross-border disputes and deals across shipping, trade, and technology, and serving as external general counsel to a bank. He earned his Juris Doctor from Fordham University School of Law in 2018 and has been admitted to the New York bar since 2019.

Author page · Co-Founder and CEO of Irys, former cross-border disputes and deal lawyer · Last updated June 2026.

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