Legal Engineer

Tarter Krinsky & Drogin•New York, NY

5d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Legal Engineer is the bridge between TKD's attorneys and its AI infrastructure. This is not a technology role that happens to sit near lawyers — it is a legal operations role that requires deep fluency in both legal practice and AI tooling. The person in this role will own the attorney-facing layer of the firm's AI program: designing workflows, managing pilots, running training and adoption, and ensuring that AI capabilities translate into genuine value inside legal practice. This role works in close collaboration with the Head of AI, training co-lead, and the incoming AI Engineer. It is a high-visibility, high-impact position with significant room to shape how the firm builds and evolves its AI function over time.

Requirements

J.D. required.
Minimum of two years of law practice experience at a law firm, in-house legal department, or public sector office. Active bar admission not required, but candidates must have practiced law.
Demonstrated experience designing and deploying legal workflows on one or more AI-native legal platforms (e.g., Harvey, Jylo, CaseBlink, Litera One, ContractMatrix, Legora, or comparable tools). End-user familiarity is not sufficient — candidates should be able to describe specific workflows they architected, the legal process problems those workflows addressed, and how they were adopted by attorneys in practice.
Hands-on software development experience beyond low-code and no-code tooling. Candidates must be able to point to applications they have built or meaningfully contributed to in a professional or project context. Proficiency with development tools and AI frameworks is expected — including one or more of the following: LangChain, LangFlow, GitHub, Cursor, Claude Code, or OpenAI Codex. This is not a requirement for a senior software engineer; it is a requirement that the candidate has written real code, understands how software gets built, and can work credibly alongside an AI engineer on custom application development.
Strong understanding of legal workflows across at least one practice area (transactional, litigation, immigration, or similar), with the ability to translate those workflows into structured, AI-ready process designs.
Excellent communication skills — able to explain technical concepts to non-technical attorneys and translate attorney feedback into actionable technical direction.
Highly organized, self-directed, and capable of managing multiple workstreams simultaneously.
Demonstrated ability to design and deliver training or change management programs.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with Microsoft Azure AI Foundry, Copilot, or similar enterprise AI infrastructure preferred.
Experience with AI prompt engineering and structured workflow documentation preferred.
Prior experience building or managing an AI, legal tech, or legal operations function preferred.

Responsibilities

Design and build AI-enabled legal workflows across practice areas, including litigation, transactional, business immigration, and corporate
Translate attorney needs into structured, repeatable workflow architectures that leverage AI platforms effectively
Document and maintain workflow templates, playbooks, and standard operating procedures
Identify and scope high-ROI workflow automation opportunities across the firm
Serve as the primary day-to-day manager of vendor pilots
Coordinate between pilot participants, vendor support teams, and firm leadership
Collect structured feedback, develop evaluation scorecards, and synthesize results for the Fractional Head of AI and executive committee
Manage pilot timelines, participation, and vendor communications
Co-lead firm-wide AI training and adoption program.
Develop and deliver training sessions tailored to different practice areas and staff functions
Host recurring office hours for attorneys seeking one-on-one platform support
Identify and cultivate super users and practice group AI leads across the firm
Support the intern desk-to-desk support program as a supervisor and resource
Develop deep proficiency in each AI platform deployed by the firm — going beyond standard user training to the level of real-time troubleshooting and workflow coaching
Stay current on platform updates, new features, and competitive alternatives
Maintain working relationships with vendor contacts and serve as a liaison between the firm and vendor support teams
Support vendor evaluation processes under the direction of the Fractional Head of AI
Establish error handling protocols and quality review processes for AI-generated outputs in legal workflows
Maintain a structured feedback loop between attorneys, the AI function, and firm leadership
Track and document AI use cases across practice groups — what is working, what is not, and what the data suggests about next steps