Senior Practice Innovation Engineer

Haynes and Boone, LLP•Houston, TX

5d•Onsite

About The Position

The Senior Practice Innovation Engineer is an exempt position that serves as a senior technical builder and solution architect for the firm’s Practice Innovation function. This role converts legal practice needs and institutional knowledge into scalable, secure solutions, including Harvey workflows, document automation templates, data-driven workflow tools, and other attorney- and client-facing solutions that may combine purchased platforms, low-code configuration, vendor functionality, and custom development. Working closely with product owners, attorneys, practice leaders, vendors, and internal developers, the Engineer evaluates when to buy, build, configure, or combine approaches and helps move ideas from pilot to repeatable production use.

Requirements

5-7 years of experience in legal technology implementation, innovation engineering, workflow automation, solution architecture, or a comparable role.
Strong understanding of legal practice workflows, attorney needs, and the business of law.
Demonstrated experience implementing legal AI, GenAI, workflow automation, knowledge management, or document automation solutions in a professional services or legal environment.
Deep hands-on experience with low-code platforms such as Microsoft Power Platform, data integrations, and workflow design.
Familiarity with vendor-provided APIs, integration patterns, and working with custom developers to extend commercial platforms.
Excellent problem-solving and delivery orientation, with the ability to convert ambiguous legal or process needs into buildable solutions.
Experience working with cross-functional IT teams, including database engineers, developers, application owners, security, and infrastructure teams.
Ability to own complex implementations and drive outcomes independently while aligning with product owners, attorneys, and firm leadership.
Strong communicator able to work across technical and non-technical teams.
Strong judgment around when to buy, configure, customize, or build, and how to combine those approaches responsibly.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on experience with Harvey or comparable legal AI platforms is preferred.
Experience developing document automation templates, structured intake logic, reusable clauses/content, and automated output generation is strongly preferred.
Knowledge of SQL Server, reporting/data structures, and Linux environments is a plus.
Knowledge of NetDocuments, Microsoft 365/Copilot, legal conflicts systems, and ethical wall systems is a plus.
Experience mentoring or guiding other engineers, analysts, or technical team members is a plus.
Bachelor’s degree in business, technology, or a related field preferred. Equivalent experience in a legal technology, innovation, workflow automation, or solution architecture role will be considered.

Responsibilities

Lead the technical design and buildout of legal technology pilots and production-ready solutions across practice areas, including Harvey workflows, document automation templates, low-code tools, and custom-developed workflow applications.
Translate attorney and business requirements into practical technical designs, process maps, data requirements, and implementation plans.
Build and maintain solutions in approved legal AI, document automation, workflow, and knowledge platforms, including Harvey, Microsoft 365/Copilot or other general-purpose AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, etc), and other firm-approved systems.
Partner with custom developers to design and deliver hybrid buy/build solutions, including API integrations, data flows, automation logic, user interfaces, and reporting components.
Collaborate with product owners to prioritize use cases, define success criteria, and transition pilots into governed, supportable solutions.
Act as the technical liaison between vendors, internal developers, IT, practice groups, and business teams.
Provide architecture guidance and hands-on configuration and implementation for key tools and systems, with attention to security, confidentiality, scalability, and maintainability.
Maintain technical documentation, solution inventories, implementation notes, and reusable design patterns; support knowledge transfer and training.
Evaluate emerging legal technology and AI capabilities and identify where vendor functionality, firm-built components, or a combined approach can improve attorney workflows.
Support continuous improvement of attorney- and client-facing workflows through testing, QA, performance tuning, adoption feedback, and process optimization.
Provide Level 2 support for deployed solutions, including troubleshooting escalated issues, root cause analysis, and coordination with vendors or internal developers for resolution.
Develop and maintain comprehensive technical documentation, including solution architecture diagrams, configuration guides, user manuals, and runbooks to support ongoing maintenance and future enhancements.