What is a Legal Engineer?
A Legal Engineer is someone who develops digital solutions for use by Legal professionals. This can involve automating processes, automating document templates, configuring contract lifecycle management (CLM) solutions and, increasingly, working and refining AI-based tools for use by lawyers.
In a 2020 Law Society Gazette article, Hogan Lovell’s Stephen Allen notes “Legal engineers are similar to what other industries would call “solutions architects”. … They are people who advise on, develop and create solutions, and are essential in keeping firms ahead of the curve.”
Having dedicated resource to design, develop & maintain such solutions benefits organisations by increasing efficiency, driving standardisation and ensuring adherence to processes and professional standards.
Legal engineers can develop solutions for either lawyers based in law firms or in-house legal teams. Just like lawyers, they can be employed ‘in-house’ at their respective law firm or corporate employer or they are available externally as consultants from legal tech consultancies such as NodeMasters.
It is important to note that a large element of a Legal Engineer’s role is not technical but requires working closely with and understanding the needs of legal professionals and their processes. With this in mind, what are the most important skills for a Legal Engineer?
Reflecting on a decade as a Legal Engineer
In some ways, it was inevitable that I would become a Legal Engineer. In-between studying for my law degree, I would design and build websites and mobile apps as both a freelancer and for my own benefit via advert & affiliate revenue. However, when graduating 14 years ago not wanting to pursue the ‘traditional’ routes of a training contract or pupillage, I felt torn between a career in law or technology. At least to me, it wasn’t apparent that is was possible to combine these two seemingly incompatible vocations.
I started my career as an in-house paralegal for a large supermarket in their Compliance and Legal teams. This gave me invaluable insight into the importance of operational processes within such functions, such as centralised reporting of food hygiene ratings and accidents as well as reviewing advertising for legal compliance. I discovered our organisation had a (largely unused) SharePoint instance with a primitive workflow builder found myself, without instruction, building simple databases and workflows purely to make my workload, as a junior member of the team, easier.
When I left the company after three years and was considering what to do next, I was fortunate to get a role as a Legal Engineer for a global law firm primarily automating documents. Unlike before, where I was informally automating my own processes, I began to develop more formal skills such as project management, document automation ‘coding’ and stakeholder management.
In the years since, I’ve worked with many additional technologies across as range of projects and use cases, always adapting and building upon my existing skill-set. However, looking back to when I was an ‘unofficial’ Legal Engineer automating my own processes, there are a number of key core skills that have benefitted me from the beginning:
5 Key Skills for Legal Engineers
1. Appreciation for Processes
To avoid blindly automating existing processes and instead leverage the full potential of digital workflows, a solid appreciation & understanding of the underlying processes and pain points analysis, visualisation, and optimisation is essential for effective legal tech solutions and a key skill for legal engineers.
2. Technical Familiarity
At the heart of legal engineering are technologies like generative AI, data analytics, APIs, document automation, and smart contracts. This expertise is essential for creating, selecting, and implementing legal tech solutions. However, with the rise of low/no-code platforms and generative AI, a Legal Engineer does not necessarily need to be a ‘coder’ but instead very familiar with the features, functionality and potential challenges of any given technology.
3. Interpersonal Skills
Notoriously underestimated, interpersonal skills are essential for interacting with managers, partners, clients, and other stakeholders. The ability to listen, empathise, explain, guide, and persuade contributes significantly to a project’s success, effectively acting as a ‘translator’ between the legal and operational requirements and the technology solution.
4. Problem Solving
Perhaps more critical than a technical skillset is a Legal Engineer’s ability to problem solve. Whilst the process stakeholders/lawyers the Legal Engineer works with can advise on the underlying requirements, process and legal elements, and technology vendors ensure the technologies used are free of bugs - the Legal Engineer assumes the (large) responsibility for the gap in-between. They must gather requirements, design, build, test, train and support the solution - which will likely be heavily customised to the business’s specific requirements. This means any problems encountered, such as how to deliver certain requirements within the functionality/technical scope available, lack precedent
5. Attitude
At the expense of the above, perhaps the most vital skill of all is an innovative attitude. Having worked with many intern and junior Legal Engineers over the past several years, whilst no-one begins their career with an expanse of the above skills, there is a clear night-and-day difference between someone who has a innate curiosity and interest in using technology to create solutions and solve problem and someone who does not. Whilst practically every other skill can be developed over time, an attitude of being open to technical innovation often cannot.
The Challenge of Finding Legal Engineers
With increased demand for Legal Engineers across law firms, corporate legal teams and also by technology vendors themselves (for customer success and support roles), organisations often find themselves without the Legal Engineering resource or expertise that they need to fulfil their innovation strategies.
As a result, a growing number of businesses (such as Hellmann Logistics, BLCP, Fintel & Beckman Coulter) are turning to the benefits of flexible, on-demand, Legal Engineering support from consultancies such as NodeMasters. Whether a specific project needs to delivered or support is needed to agilely support and enhance existing solutions, organisations benefit from being able to engage a Legal Engineer as and when they need them, paying only for the services delivered.
Learn more about NodeMasters’ Flexible Support service >
