Legal Engineering Attorney

Latham & Watkins; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 220,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare, life and disability insurance

Generous 401k plan

23 days PTO and 11 paid holidays

Professional development programs

Job summary

Latham & Watkins in Chicago seeks a Legal Engineering Attorney to design AI-native systems translating legal expertise into machine-executable outputs. This role involves re-engineering workflows for AI execution, authoring machine-readable schemas, and ensuring quality in legal outputs.

Ideal candidates have a J.D., three years of legal practice, and two years in roles focused on operationalizing legal expertise into AI systems. A strong salary package with comprehensive benefits is offered.

Qualifications

• Minimum three years of substantive legal practice experience.
• Minimum two years of experience as a Legal Engineer or comparable role.
• Hands-on experience with AI platforms and law-related workflows.

Responsibilities

• Re-engineering existing manual workflows for AI execution.
• Translating practice group materials into structured artifacts.
• Authoring schema specifications and JSON Schemas.

Skills

Fluency in prompts for large language models

Reading and writing structured data formats

Designing evaluation rubrics and conducting quality measurement

Education

J.D. from an accredited law school

Bachelor's degree in law, computer science, or related field

Tools

JSON

JSON Schema

YAML

Markdown

Job description

About Latham & Watkins

Latham & Watkins is one of the world’s leading global law firms advising the businesses and institutions that drive the global economy. We are the market leaders in major financial and business centers around the world. Our investment in people, commitment to innovation, and focus on the future empower you to build an incredible career and thrive as an exceptional professional in a supportive culture. If you aspire to be the best, and work with the best, this is where you belong.

About The Role

The Legal Engineering Attorney is an integral part of Latham’s Technology & Information Services team. This role will be responsible for designing the AI‑native systems that translate elite legal expertise into reliable, repeatable, machine‑executable outputs, including prompts, schemas, evaluation suites, playbooks, and end‑to‑end workflows, while decomposing complex transactional and litigation workflows into discrete, measurable tasks with defined inputs, outputs, decision points, and quality criteria suitable for AI execution. This role will be located in either our New York, Boston, Chicago, Washington, D.C., or Los Angeles offices. Note that this role may be eligible for a flexible working schedule that allows for a hybrid and in‑office presence.

Responsibilities & Qualifications

Other key responsibilities include:

• Re‑engineering existing manual workflows for AI‑first execution, determining the appropriate allocation of work, placement of review gates, and handling of exceptions
• Translating practice group playbooks, checklists, negotiation positions, and house style into structured artifacts, including prompts, schemas, decision trees, and rule sets that production AI systems can execute against
• Codifying the tacit knowledge of senior practitioners, including fallback positions, market terms, negotiation flexibility, and drafting conventions, in machine‑readable form
• Authoring schema specifications and JSON Schemas for deal types, clause libraries, document attributes, and matter metadata, ensuring they are extensible, validated, and aligned with firm practice
• Curating exemplar matters, precedents, and work product into reference packs that drive few‑shot prompting, fine‑tuning, and evaluation
• Protecting and maintaining any highly sensitive, confidential, privileged, financial, and/or proprietary information that Latham & Watkins retains

We’d love to hear from you if you:

• Possess demonstrated fluency authoring, evaluating, and iterating on prompts for large language models in production legal workflows
• Demonstrate working proficiency reading and writing structured data formats, including JSON, JSON Schema, YAML, and Markdown, with the ability to understand schemas, enumerations, and conditional logic independently
• Exhibit practical experience designing evaluation rubrics and conducting structured quality measurement of AI outputs, including the use of golden datasets, head‑to‑head comparisons, and error taxonomies

And have:

• A J.D. from an accredited law school
• A bachelor’s degree, in law, computer science, information systems, or a related field, preferably
• A minimum of three (3) years of substantive legal practice experience at a law firm or in‑house legal department, with ownership of complex transactional or advisory matters
• A minimum of two (2) years of full‑time experience as a Legal Engineer, Legal Knowledge Engineer, Legal Workflow Engineer, Innovation Attorney, or comparable role focused on operationalizing legal expertise into AI‑driven systems and workflows
• Experience at a legal AI company, law firm innovation team, alternative legal services provider, or software company building tools for lawyers, preferably
• Hands‑on experience with AI platforms designing or evaluating law‑related workflows or agents, preferably

Benefits & Additional Information

Successful candidates will not only be provided with an outstanding career opportunity and welcoming environment, but will also be provided with a generous total compensation package with bonuses awarded in recognition of both individual and firm performance. Eligible employees can participate in Latham’s comprehensive benefit program which includes:

• Healthcare, life and disability insurance
• A generous 401k plan
• At least 11 paid holidays per year, and a PTO program that accrues 23 days during the first year of employment and grows with tenure
• Well‑being programs (e.g. mental health services, mindfulness and resiliency, medical resources, well‑being events, and more)
• Professional development programs
• Employee discounts
• Affinity groups, networks, and coalitions for lawyers and staff

Latham & Watkins is an equal opportunity employer. The Firm prohibits discrimination against any employee or applicant for employment on the basis of race (including, but not limited to, hair texture and protective hairstyles), color, religion, sex, age, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status (including veterans of the Vietnam era), gender expression, marital status, or any other characteristic or condition protected by applicable statute.

Pay Range

USD $220,000.00 - USD $250,000.00 /Yr.