Director, Applied AI for Legal Practice

Covington & Burling LLP; California; Hybrid; USD 309,000 - 438,000; Full time

Job summary

Covington & Burling LLP seeks a Director of Applied AI to lead day-to-day delivery of the firm’s AI roadmap. You will supervise practice-aligned Applied AI Managers, partner with KM and Practice Technology, and scale high-impact AI use cases across Corporate, Litigation, Regulatory, and White Collar.

You will drive adoption, set delivery standards, and work with senior leaders to translate legal requirements into AI-enabled workflows while safeguarding data and governance commitments.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 8 years of professional experience, with meaningful work in applied AI, machine learning, or legal technology delivery.
• Experience shipping AI-enabled tools or workflows into production with measurable adoption and impact.
• Ability to interact with senior leadership and translate business needs into technical solutions.
• Strong understanding of legal workflows across transactional, litigation, regulatory, and investigations matters.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop the Applied AI Manager team across practice areas, setting delivery expectations and a high-performance culture.
• Define and maintain firm-wide applied AI delivery standards and evaluation methods.
• Identify, prioritize, and sequence AI use cases to improve matter execution and client service.
• Oversee design, build, and deployment of AI-enabled tools across legal workflows.
• Drive firm-wide adoption through training, demos, and enablement.
• Report adoption, performance, and value metrics to senior leadership.

Skills

Leadership of AI teams

AI strategy execution

LLM-based applications

Stakeholder management

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree

Advanced degree preferred

Tools

AI tools evaluation

Job description

Covington & Burling LLP seeks a Director of Applied AI to lead day-to-day delivery of the firm’s AI roadmap. You will supervise practice-aligned Applied AI Managers, partner with KM and Practice Technology, and scale high-impact AI use cases across Corporate, Litigation, Regulatory, and White Collar.

You will drive adoption, set delivery standards, and work with senior leaders to translate legal requirements into AI-enabled workflows while safeguarding data and governance commitments.