Newcomers, new legal roles: legal engineer

Automation, digitalisation, AI - technology is inevitably permeating not only our everyday lives, but also the legal sector. An integral part of this process is the legal engineer, who enables organisations to not only create, but also optimise and tailor their legal solutions, services and processes. In major law firms and legal departments abroad, legal engineers can already be found in several places in different areas, e.g. as part of an innovation team or knowledge management. Of course, this role is not always found in-house, but in many cases, the expertise is provided by alternative legal service providers (ALSPs), which are still little known in e.g. Hungary.

The third interviewee in the series is Tamás Kmety, who combines legal and IT skills in the seemingly exotic profession of legal engineering. His work strengthens for example Jalsovszky's legaltech area as a consultant.

Did you work in a traditional legal role?

Yes, during my university years, I was a trainee for 4 years as an aide-de-camp for a criminal and tort lawyer. 

When did you change, and what was the trigger for doing that?

My career, or rather my choice of university, has historical, biographical reasons. I would mark the installation of our ADSL modem at home in the early 2000s as a turning point, when I started surfing the waves of the internet, and digitalisation started for me.

I left the legal profession before the echoes of the university oath died away, as I joined a start-up developing an online contracting platform, where I was able to acquire legal and technological knowledge of electronic signatures, as well as a preview of agile software development. During my university years, I was already involved in web design, building websites and co-founding a historical journal, migrating it from print to web and web2.

What do you do now?

For almost 4 years now, I have been developing documents for 2 law firms on a document automation - no code & low code - software platform. One is Jalsovszky Law Firm and the other is LeitnerLaw Szabó & Partners Law Firm. In addition, I am also responsible for the monitoring of technology solutions that support legal work, as well as the integration, training, support, etc. of applications that are to be implemented.

What kind of expertise/certification/skill is needed to fulfil this role?

In my case, legal education is just "eye candy". For my current job, a strong technical, logical affinity is essential. The work is development, it requires a "roadmap", specification, implementation plan, and sometimes monotonous, sometimes active logical thinking. 

I can't really understand the "AI" and "Legaltech" trainings available today, as it's about programs and languages or who is open to technological competition, and is willing to let new achievements through their systems respectively. The product descriptions, the manuals, the demo and the tutorial videos are there for everyone to read and utilise, free of charge. 

It is also important to have a "business analyst" attitude, as this is the only way to identify the most important business needs and increase efficiency.

How do you see the future of this role, what are the perspectives?

I have no visionary powers, but you can see that in the larger law firms, there are already people doing purely technological work, and in the even larger law firms there are teams of people doing the same.

Do you have any thoughts to highlight for the readers?

I want to demystify the hysteria around AI. There will always be a need for lawyers, but workflows may change, teams may be reorganised, and new roles may be created with specific tasks.

Let the winds of change blow us all over, feel free to use ChatGPT, and ask him any questions you like, as it is still cheaper to hand over a task to "him" than to a junior trainee.

In conclusion, a good introduction to the role of a legal engineer is a law degree, which, in addition to identifying and understanding the business need (business analyst role), also provides insight into the steps of implementation and subsequent use. Attitude is important, but even without deeper IT knowledge, you can start to get acquainted with the so-called no code/low code environment and with ChatGPT (being aware of its limitations). The proper use of technology has numerous known benefits and can greatly increase the efficiency of our work, reducing workload e.g. through contract automation, document management systems, and implementation of digital case management solutions. It is therefore worth getting to know it better, and even enlisting the help of a legal engineer to take practical steps, combining the perspectives of a business analyst, a developer, a designer and an operator.