Diana Stern

Biography

Diana Stern is an operating advisor at Bessemer, Deputy General Counsel at Protocol Labs, and special counsel at DLx Law, a leading law firm serving the blockchain and cryptocurrency sectors.

At Protocol Labs, Diana helps guide the company’s legal strategy in support of its mission to drive breakthroughs in computing, storage, and networks. At DLx Law, she works with clients across the blockchain, fintech, and media sectors to build and optimize in-house legal functions and provides product counseling across the firm’s portfolio.

With over a decade of specialized legal experience in the digital assets sector and other highly regulated industries, Diana brings deep expertise to her advisory role. Previously, she served as General Counsel at Palm NFT Studio, where she scaled the company’s legal and regulatory operations, advised on strategic brand collaborations leveraging web3 tools, and led the company through its merger with Candy Digital.

Diana's diverse background includes roles such as payments product counsel at Stripe, where she was a founding member of and lead product counsel for their global crypto team. At Stripe, she also oversaw user policy legal in the U.S. and Canada, implementing cross-functional legal strategies that resulted in billions of dollars in payments volume with minimal product or engineering intervention. Earlier in her career, Diana served as the legal innovation designer at BakerHostetler LLP, contributing to the creation of the first enterprise smart contracts at major law firms.

Beyond her professional roles, Diana actively participates in the legal tech community. She co-organizes Bay Area Legal Hackers and serves on the Editorial Board of the MIT Computational Law Report. Previously, she served on the board of Ms. JD, a national nonprofit dedicated to building a diverse pipeline of future women leaders in law.

Diana holds a bachelor’s degree with honors in writing seminars and French from John Hopkins University and holds a JD from UCLA School of Law. In her free time, she enjoys practicing Muay Thai and indulging in her passion for writing poetry.