I’m Michael Toback.
I’ve spent forty years working inside regulated industries: insurance, law, biomedical engineering, and cybersecurity. PracticeForge AI is how I bring that experience to your firm’s AI work.
What you get when you hire me.
An AI partner who can have your conversation. I hold the licenses your work runs on: California Property & Casualty for insurance brokers, the California Bar and USPTO Patent Bar for law firms, CompTIA CySA+ and ACRM 401 Cyber Risk Management for cyber-readiness work.
Those licenses are not decoration. They are why I know what your AI deployment has to clear before it is safe to run on your data, and why I can tell you when an automation idea will cost you more in regulatory exposure than it saves in staff time.
Credentials.
- California Property & Casualty agent — license issued 2026. Lets me speak the language of brokers, underwriters, and the controls your carriers actually ask about.
- California Bar — admitted; currently inactive (retired status). Trained in the rules that govern privileged communication and client confidentiality.
- USPTO Patent Bar — registered patent agent, active. Comfortable with regulated technical writing and the documentation discipline patent-side practice teaches.
- MS Biomedical Engineering — Carnegie Mellon University. Background in regulated device design and clinical data systems.
- CompTIA CySA+ — passed 2022, currently inactive. Practiced in the security-controls vocabulary carriers underwrite against.
- ACRM 401 Cyber Risk Management — The Institutes, earned 2026. Trained in cyber-risk quantification for insurance underwriting.
What I’ve built.
AI development. Production AI automation builds for regulated SMBs in 2026. A cyber-insurance readiness intake platform that scores broker prospects against what carriers actually underwrite for.
Cybersecurity. Patch and vulnerability reporting workflow automation. Active in the cybersecurity controls space carriers underwrite against.
Fintech. Built and owned the SBA loan interface for a small fintech startup during the PPP surge. Processed 250,000 SBA loans in six months.
Patent and family law. Silicon Valley patent practice. California family-law practice. Four issued patents and more than twenty additional patents drafted as a USPTO-registered patent agent for clients.
Biomedical engineering. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The Oceania EMR startup (1996). Intrexon’s industrial-biotechnology program in the 2010s.
What it’s like to work with me.
We start with a conversation. Tell me what your firm does and where the work breaks. I will not show up with a slide deck or a pre-built tool to sell you.
The paid audit comes after that conversation, only if there is something worth auditing. The build comes after the audit, only if the foundation supports it. The retainer comes after the build, only if it is working.
Fixed fee per stage. No hourly billing. No surprise change orders. If an idea is not going to pay for itself, I will say so before you spend anything.