In 2018, when Daniel Himmel moved from practicing law to a job that today might be called legal engineering, it felt like a major career risk. "I was nervous," he said. "I thought, what is my career going to look like?" He no longer feels that way. As head of legal engineering for North America at the legal tech company Legora, Himmel has hired about 70 people over the past year. The company's global team of roughly 200 legal engineers has been built since 2024. "We're hiring hundreds, and competitors are hiring them, and our clients are hiring them," he said. "It's a true profession."
As artificial intelligence becomes a bigger part of legal work, technology vendors, law firms and in-house legal teams are all looking for people who understand both law and technology well enough to rewrite workflows and teach others to use A.I. tools. They are often called "legal engineers," though titles vary, including "knowledge and innovation counsels" and "innovation attorneys." Pay also varies. Latham & Watkins is hiring "legal engineering attorneys" in at least five cities with a salary range of $220,000 to $250,000. Gibson Dunn advertises $250,000 to $300,000 for a "legal technology & AI Attorney," while Microsoft seeks a "principal legal engineer" at $147,000 to $278,900.
Stanford Law School's Irene Liu describes the role simply: "law plus technology plus business process." Its Legal Engineering Academy has drawn about 1,400 senior leaders who asked to be notified when applications open. In the first six months of this year, almost 50 lawyers left the 200 largest U.S. law firms for A.I. companies, including 15 who took legal engineering roles, according to Firm Prospects.
At A.I. companies, legal engineers often help clients integrate products into workflows, run trials and onboard employees. Harvey employs about 180 such engineers, all former practicing lawyers. Law firms are building similar teams with a broader focus. Ropes & Gray hired its first of five practice innovation attorneys at the end of last year. Howard Glazer, who now leads the firm's practice A.I., said: "In the old days, there was technology and there was law. Now we actually provide our service and provide our clients technology as well."
Source: New York Times Business · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing