Legal Practice Technology Data Scientist

Kirkland & Ellis; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 133,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive healthcare benefits

Paid time off

Retirement plan

Learning opportunities

Job summary

Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago seeks a Data Scientist to join their Innovation Program. The role involves designing and executing complex eDiscovery workflows, collaborating with legal teams to develop custom solutions, and leveraging advanced technologies. Ideal candidates will have over 3 years of experience in the legal sector, strong analytical skills, and expertise in Python and Microsoft Excel. The position offers a competitive salary range of $133,000 - $150,000 and a comprehensive benefits package.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in a law firm or professional services organization.
• Strong problem-solving skills and analytical mindset.
• Demonstrated hands-on experience with custom development in eDiscovery.
• Expert-level proficiency in Microsoft Excel including advanced features.

Responsibilities

• Design and execute workflows on complex eDiscovery matters.
• Support the collection of requirements and in-house solutions development.
• Analyze and troubleshoot data processing and analytics issues.
• Work on data-heavy projects requiring advanced technologies.

Skills

Data analysis

Statistical analysis

Microsoft Excel (advanced)

Python (data analysis)

SQL

Data visualization tools (e.g., Tableau)

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Relativity

Power BI

Plotly

Microsoft Azure OpenAI

Job description

About Kirkland & Ellis

At Kirkland & Ellis, we don’t just meet the standard for legal excellence — we set it. Our culture is built on teamwork, ingenuity and an unwavering commitment to continuous growth. We tackle the most sophisticated legal challenges with bold ideas and innovative solutions, powered by the exceptional experience and ambition of our 7,000+ people, including 4,000+ attorneys, across 23 offices worldwide. Our dedicated professionals share our lawyers’ commitment to excellence and show up each day to do meaningful work that helps drive global business, investment and innovation forward.

At Kirkland & Ellis, we don’t just meet the standard for legal excellence — we set it. Our culture is built on teamwork, ingenuity and an unwavering commitment to continuous growth. We tackle the most sophisticated legal challenges with bold ideas and innovative solutions, powered by the exceptional experience and ambition of our 7,000+ people, including 4,000+ attorneys, across 23 offices worldwide. Our dedicated professionals share our lawyers’ commitment to excellence and show up each day to do meaningful work that helps drive global business, investment and innovation forward.

What You’ll Do

If you have spent your career in eDiscovery and litigation support and are ready to apply that foundation, along with a broader technical skill set, to a wider scope of work, this could be the role for you.

Impact. Data Scientists sit within a group of discovery, data management, and AI specialists dedicated to designing and executing client-focused workflows on some of the most complex matters in our industry. You will report to the Associate Director of Technical Operations. The role is hands-on and client-facing; more than half of your time will be spent directly embedded in active matters. This position sits within the firm’s Innovation Program.

Coordination and Execution of In-house Solution Development. You will support the collection of requirements and the design and building of in-house solutions. You will consult with case teams on data strategies and execute rapid solution development including custom scripting, data management, database development, and visualization design. You will complete requests requiring advanced technologies such as document layout analysis, LLM-based information extraction, semantic chunking, and entity recognition, while maintaining comprehensive documentation throughout.

Data Project Service Delivery. You will support matter-specific needs as a subject matter resource, analyzing and troubleshooting data processing and analytics issues. You will develop custom eDiscovery workflows and execute data-heavy, data-modeling projects that require creative problem-solving and technical depth.

Department Initiatives. You will work closely with other data science teams and Legal Practice Technology (“LPT”) leadership to evaluate and test internal solutions and emerging technology. You will serve as a go-to resource for technical knowledge in AI, contributing your expertise to the team’s continuous advancement of its capabilities.

What You’ll Bring

• 3+ years of experience in a law firm, legal services, or professional services organization with significant experience working in a team environment.
• Ability to translate complex concepts into client-friendly language.
• Highly analytical with strong problem-solving skills and the ability to translate ambiguous problems into structured solutions.
• Knowledge of statistical analysis and data modeling.
• Demonstrated hands-on experience with Relativity custom development. Deep knowledge in eDiscovery-focused data processing, structured analytics, and related troubleshooting.
• Expert-level proficiency in Microsoft Excel, including VBA development, Power Query, complex formula construction, advanced data modeling, and chart design.
• Experience in creating data visualizations with hands-on proficiency in tools such as Plotly, Tableau, and Microsoft Power BI.
• Strong Python skills for data analysis, statistical modeling, and AI/ML prototyping (e.g., pandas, PyTorch, TensorFlow); advanced SQL proficiency; experience building data pipelines.
• Proficiency in front-end web technologies including JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, with the ability to develop interactive web-based tools and dashboards.
• Hands-on experience with AI platforms and tools (e.g., OpenAI, Microsoft Azure OpenAI, Hugging Face, LangFlow, LangChain), including practical implementation of RAG pipelines, vector databases, and knowledge graph construction.
• General knowledge of social network analysis, natural language processing, classification algorithms, and image processing.
• Familiarity with git, svn, JIRA, or other version control technologies.
• Familiarity with hardware platforms (e.g., CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs).
• Bachelor’s degree.
• Familiarity with leading legal technology platforms is preferred (docketing systems, document management systems, case management systems, eDiscovery, data collection and web capture solutions).
• Experience evaluating LLM output quality through benchmarking, precision, recall, and extraction accuracy assessment is preferred.

Compensation

The base salary range below represents the low and high end of the salary range for this position in each location. This range may differ based on geographic location and cost of living considerations. We offer a comprehensive benefits package, including healthcare, paid time off, retirement, and learning opportunities to help you realize your potential.

Compensation Range

Chicago: $133,000 - $150,000

New York City: $133,000 - $166,000

Los Angeles: $133,000 - $166,000

Bay Area: $133,000 - $191,000

Washington D.C.: $133,000 - $166,000

Boston: $133,000 - $166,000

How to Apply

Thank you for your interest in Kirkland & Ellis LLP. To complete an application and submit your resume, please click "Apply Now". Don’t meet every job requirement? That’s okay. If you’re excited about this role but your experience doesn’t perfectly fit every qualification, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right person for this role or others at Kirkland.

Equal Employment Opportunity

The Firm will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records and criminal histories consistent with local laws. All employment decisions, including recruiting, hiring, placement, training availability, promotion, compensation, evaluation, disciplinary actions, and termination of employment (if necessary) are made without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, pregnancy or childbirth, personal appearance, family responsibilities, sexual orientation or preference, gender identity, political affiliation, source of income, place of residence, national or ethnic origin, ancestry, age, marital status, military veteran status, unfavorable discharge from military service, physical or mental disability, or on any other basis prohibited by applicable law.