Head of Legal Engineering

Norton Rose Fulbright•Austin, TX

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

At Norton Rose Fulbright, people thrive because of a shared commitment to quality, unity and integrity. The highly regarded law firm consistently receives recognition from Great Place to Work and Top Workplaces, two companies that specialize in assessing organizational culture. Teams collaborate across regions, value new ideas and deliver meaningful client solutions, supported by a culture that embraces ambition, development and shared success. With more than 3,000 lawyers and 3,000 business services professionals working together across 50 offices worldwide, this global law firm provides a full range of legal services to leading corporations and financial institutions operating in key markets and sectors. About you: You are a builder at heart and a natural problem solver. You don’t just theorize about AI, you design, prototype, and deliver solutions that solve real problems. You are equally comfortable whiteboarding with attorneys, vibe coding, and translating ambiguity into working commercial products. You bring a pragmatic mindset: focusing on speed to value while ensuring solutions are scalable, secure, and aligned with firm risk tolerance. About the role: Norton Rose Fulbright has a long-standing commitment to leveraging technology to enhance legal services and streamline operations. We are seeking a highly motivated and experienced Head of Legal Engineering to play a central role in designing, building, and scaling AI-enabled solutions across the firm. This role sits within the US Innovation team and reports to the US Director, Head of Innovation, and collaborates closely with legal practice groups, IT, and other business services functions. A successful candidate will bring strong legal acumen, a practical understanding of AI technologies, and the ability to lead a team as well as complex, cross-functional initiatives. This is a unique opportunity to help build a legal engineering function inside one of the world's leading law firms -- with organizational support, a growing team, and genuine executive sponsorship. The work is consequential, the problems are hard, and the potential to reshape how legal services are delivered is real.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree; JD preferred, or equivalent professional experience
Minimum seven years of experience in product-focused roles, legal innovation, professional services consulting, or related fields, with a strong understanding of legal service delivery and how legal work is performed in practice
Demonstrated technical or product proficiency: building or shipping products or tools in legal or professional services production environments, software development, workflow automation, or legal technology implementation
Demonstrated experience building and deploying AI-enabled solutions into production environments, preferably using large language models (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic)
Experience working with APIs, scripting, or low-code/no-code platforms (Python, JavaScript, or similar preferred), RAG architectures, or multi-step AI workflows
Comfort operating in ambiguity: this function is still being defined, and you will help define and mature it
Excellent communication skills and ability to translate business or legal requirements into technical solutions and workflows; able to present to senior partners and work alongside engineers in the same day
Demonstrated ability to manage multiple projects and deliver results in a fast-paced environment
Genuine broader market curiosity about AI and its implications for the future of legal practice – beyond simply familiarity with the tools
Understanding of data privacy, security, and responsible AI considerations in a professional services context
Experience developing reusable frameworks, templates, or scalable solution patterns

Responsibilities

As a builder-coach, this is a hands-on role where you will be focused on both product and people by directly building solutions and leading a growing team.
Build trusted relationships with attorneys and business service colleagues across the firm to drive alignment and support for the Innovation program’s initiatives.
Help shape the firm’s broader approach to applied AI, contributing to standards, governance practices, and solution architecture that enable responsible and sustainable adoption at scale.
Own the full product lifecycle for legal engineering initiatives: from scoping, workflow decomposition, and prototyping; through production deployment and scaled adoption across the firm (in collaboration with other Innovation teams).
Design and develop AI-powered legal workflows, solutions, and internal products from concept through deployment, using tools such as LLM APIs, and legal-specific platforms (e.g., Legora, Harvey).
Develop and maintain evaluation frameworks to measure accuracy, consistency, and defensibility of AI outputs against legal standards and firm expectations.
Identify high-value automation and augmentation opportunities across practice groups and business services.
Collaborate with attorneys, business services, and firm leadership to surface unmet needs and translate them into engineered solutions.
Integrate AI tools into existing legal workflows, ensuring usability and adoption.
Build and test prototypes rapidly, iterating toward production-ready solutions.
Manage and mentor a team of legal engineers and automation specialists, with accountability for hiring and team development as the function scales.
Establish engineering standards, workflows, and quality practices for the team.
Partner with the Director of Innovation and senior leadership to shape the legal engineering roadmap and org design.
Work directly with Innovation leadership, attorneys, practice leaders, and business stakeholders to co-design solutions.
Partner with the AI Governance & Program Manager, IT, and Info security teams to ensure solutions meet firm standards and governance requirements.
Act as a translator between technical capabilities and legal use cases.

Benefits

Access to three medical plans
Dental insurance
Vision insurance
Life insurance
Disability insurance
Pre-tax benefits such as health savings and flexible spending accounts
401(k) savings plan
Profit-sharing plans (if eligible)
Fertility benefits
Competitive paid time off plan (minimum of 20 days off based on role and tenure)
Paid parental leave (minimum of 14 weeks)
11 Firm holidays