Head of Legal Engineering
Houston, TX - USA
Job Summary
Job Description
At Norton Rose Fulbright people thrive because of a shared commitment to quality unity and integrity. The highly regarded law firm consistently receives recognition from Great Place to Work and Top Workplaces two companies that specialize in assessing organizational culture. Teams collaborate across regions value new ideas and deliver meaningful client solutions supported by a culture that embraces ambition development and shared success. With more than 3000 lawyers and 3000 business services professionals working together across 50 offices worldwide this global law firm provides a full range of legal services to leading corporations and financial institutions operating in key markets and sectors.
You are a builder at heart and a natural problem solver. Youdontjusttheorize aboutAI you design prototype and deliver solutions that solve real problems. You are equallycomfortablewhiteboarding with attorneys vibe coding and translating ambiguity into working commercial products. You bring a pragmatic mindset: focusing on speed to value while ensuring solutions are scalable secure and aligned with firm risk tolerance.
Norton Rose Fulbright has a long-standing commitment toleveragingtechnology to enhance legal services and streamline operations. We areseekinga highly motivated and experienced Head of Legal Engineeringto playa central rolein designing building and scaling AI-enabled solutions across the firm. This role sits within the US Innovation team and reports to the US Director Head of Innovation and collaborates closely with legal practice groups IT and other business services functions. A successful candidate will bring strong legal acumen a practical understanding of AI technologies and the ability to lead a team as well as complex cross-functional initiatives.
This is a unique opportunity to help build a legal engineering function inside one of the worlds leading law firms -- with organizational support a growing team and genuine executive sponsorship. The work is consequential the problems are hard and the potential to reshape how legal services are delivered is real.
As a builder-coach this is a hands-on role where you will be focused on both product and people by directly building solutions and leading a growing team. Equally you will build trusted relationships with attorneys and business service colleagues across the firm to drive alignment and support for the Innovation programs initiatives.
You will also help shape the firms broader approach to applied AI contributing to standards governance practices and solution architecture that enable responsible and sustainable adoption at scale.
- Own the full product lifecycle for legal engineering initiatives: from scoping workflow decomposition and prototyping; through production deployment and scaled adoption across the firm (in collaboration with other Innovation teams)
- Design and develop AI-powered legal workflows solutions and internal products from concept through deployment using tools such as LLM APIs and legal-specific platforms (e.g.Legora Harvey)
- Develop andmaintainevaluation frameworks to measure accuracy consistency and defensibility of AI outputs against legal standards and firm expectations
- Identifyhigh-value automation and augmentation opportunities across practice groups and business services
- Collaborate with attorneys business services and firm leadership to surface unmet needs and translate them into engineered solutions
- Integrate AI tools into existing legal workflows ensuring usability and adoption
- Build and test prototypes rapidly iterating toward production-ready solutions
- Manage and mentor a team of legal engineers and automation specialists with accountability for hiring and team development as the function scales
- Establish engineering standards workflows and quality practices for the team
- Partner with the Director of Innovation and senior leadership to shape the legal engineering roadmap and org design
- Work directly with Innovation leadership attorneys practice leaders and business stakeholders to co-design solutions
- Partner with the AI Governance & Program Manager IT and Info security teams to ensure solutions meet firm standards and governance requirements
- Act as a translator between technical capabilities and legal use cases
- Bachelors degree; JD preferredor equivalent professional experience
- Minimum seven years of experience in product-focused roles legal innovation professional services consulting or related fields with a strong understanding of legal service delivery and how legal work is performed in practice
- Demonstrated technical or productproficiency: building or shipping products or tools in legal or professional services production environments software development workflow automation or legal technology implementation
- Demonstrated experience building and deploying AI-enabled solutions into production environments preferably using large language models (e.g. OpenAI Anthropic)
- Experience working with APIs scripting or low-code/no-code platforms (Python JavaScript or similar preferred) RAG architectures or multi-step AI workflows
- Comfortoperatingin ambiguity: this function is still being defined and you will help define and mature it
- Excellent communication skills and ability to translate business or legal requirements into technical solutions and workflows; able to present to senior partners and work alongside engineers in the same day
- Demonstrated ability to manage multiple projects and deliver results in a fast-paced environment
- Genuine broader market curiosity about AI and its implications for the future of legal practice beyond simply familiarity with the tools
- Understanding of data privacy security and responsible AI considerations in a professional services context
- Experience developing reusable frameworks templates or scalable solution patterns
Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP is committed to providing employees with a comprehensive and competitive benefits package that supports you your health and your family. Benefit packages include access to three medical plans dental vision life and disability insurance. Employees can also access pre-tax benefits such as health savings and flexible spending accounts. Norton Rose Fulbright helps provide financial security by allowing employees to participate in a 401(k) savings plan and profit-sharing plans if eligible. Full- time employees are eligible to access fertility benefits designed to support fertility and family-forming journeys.
In addition to the Firms health and welfare benefits above we offer a competitive paid time off plan which provides a minimum of 20 days off based on your role and tenure with the firm. The firm offers a generous paid parental leave benefit allowing parents to take a minimum of 14 weeks of paid leave to bond with your newborn or adopted child(ren). Employees are also entitled to 11 Firm holidays.
Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP is an Equal Opportunity Employer and complies with all applicable federal laws and their implementing regulations that require the collection and recording of certain data and information. The information we receive will not be used to make any decision regarding employment and will be kept separate from your application. Similarly self-identification information is kept confidential and used only in accordance with applicable federal laws and regulations. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race color religion sex national origin sexual orientation gender identity disability or protected veteran Rose Fulbright is committed to providing reasonable accommodation as an Equal Opportunity Employer to applicants with disabilities. If you require assistance or accommodation to complete your application please contact . Please provide your contact information and a description of your accessibility issue. We will make a determination on your request for reasonable accommodation on a case-by-case basis.
Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about discussed or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge (b) in furtherance of an investigation proceeding hearing or action including an investigation conducted by the firm or (c) consistent with the contractors legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c).
Required Experience:
Director
About Company
Norton Rose Fulbright is a global law firm. We provide the world’s pre-eminent corporations and financial institutions with a full business law service.