Is a legal engineer worthy of the title “engineer”?

As the position of “legal engineer” increasingly enters the reality of law firms and legal departments on a global scale, resistance flourishes from areas of so-called “traditional” engineering who claim that the term is being tainted by self-proclaimed engineers who do not fit the description.  

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Protecting the title “engineer”

The main line of argumentation of this group is that "engineer” is a title which ought to be used selectively and respectfully to define a series of activities which can qualify as such. And this line of argumentation is not wrong. In fact, some jurisdictions go as far as appointing a regulator which decides who can be referred to as an engineer, as is the case of Canada, or requiring of a permit if you obtained an engineering degree abroad and want to exercise as an engineer in that country, as is the case of Germany.

I agree with this argument: “engineers” perform a specific group of tasks which are distinct and should therefore be used as a basis for what does or doesn’t constitute such work. Nevertheless, I disagree with how this argument is being used to discredit the work of so-called “legal engineers”.  

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Does legal engineering fit the pants of engineering?

In my opinion, referring to “legal engineering” as such must not be frowned upon because of tasks that belong to traditional engineering not being met by their legal counterparts. It can however be claimed that “legal engineers” perform many other tasks that do not classify as engineering, so their work should be categorized under other titles as well. I will now proceed to try to dismount, to the best of my abilities, these two arguments.

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“Legal engineers do not engineer in the first place”

Let’s consider the first argument that the tasks of “legal engineers” do not qualify as engineering at all. To understand what tasks belong to an engineer, here is a common definition of the term: “a person whose job is to design or build machines, engines, or electrical equipment, or things such as roads, railways, or bridges, using scientific principles”. Quite a broad definition, and that is exactly what proves this point.  

Legal engineers design and build functionalities within existing platforms in a way that “enhances” legal work. In today’s world, where most machines or engines built no longer belong to the physical world but rather build upon the stack of existing software, these functionalities built by legal engineers ARE machines and engines. Therefore, if we talk about engineers building infrastructure, we do not only talk about physical components; we talk of both digital and physical spheres. The term “legal engineer” has been harmonized in the common conception that people in this position seek to BRIDGE the gap between human legal expertise and computer-based AI or online systems.

With this example, I seek to exemplify the strong arguments that can be brought forward in favour of legal engineering being classified as such. In fact, if you continue assessing how the definition of “engineer” applies to work performed by such people, you might have a hard time proving the contrary.  

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“Legal engineers do way too many things to be engineers”

Let’s now consider the validity of the alternative argument I provided you with: the tasks of legal engineers are often too varied to only be categorized as “engineering”.

To begin with, “legal engineer” is an emergent concept, being shaped every day by the way in which the legal world uses it to describe different job profiles. And I totally understand why it is not the easiest concept to use, or the easiest job opening to frame. The term is commonly used by people to refer to tasks ranging from AI testing and legal prompting expertise to adoption management and sales-oriented tasks.

I agree this light usage of the term could be detrimental to the practice of legal engineering at large, and things should be called by what they are. But its early existence also justifies more patience with how the position is coming into existence. As the sector stabilizes with time, I believe the term will consequently stabilize and be protected by the very same people who exercise it. To give you an example, at Saga we differentiate between types of legal engineers: we have Commercial Legal Engineers, plain Legal Engineers or Legal Expert Engineers. The differences stem from the skills which each of us possesses and consequently, the role for which we were chosen. We also leave outside the term those positions that should not be qualified as such: AI Adoption Managers, Customer Success Managers, Legal Operations Specialists, etc.

Even if the term might stabilize, there are still tasks that belong to a legal engineer and do not fall strictly under the definition of “engineering”, such as tasks more closely related to management, sales, etc. However, the vast majority of “traditional” engineers also engage in other tasks that do not fit the strict definition of engineering in their daily work. The fact that legal engineer positions recognize their broad profile and do not hide it does not mean the role is any less “engineer-y” than others, it just means we recognize that work increasingly requires of having “engineer” profiles that possess various skills and consequently manage various tasks sometimes.  

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Getting into the nitty-gritty of legal engineering

All in all, I believe there is a strong argumentation in favor of legal engineers being considered as such. But I acknowledge that it is still hard to comprehend how the tasks performed by people like me fit the pants of “engineering”.  

To convince you further, I have decided to write a series of articles about how we engage in “engineering” as the core of our daily tasks. Here is a shortlist of topics I will cover off the top of my head:

• How do legal engineers build, if they even build at all?

• What role does prompting have in legal engineering?

• Which “additional tasks” can be covered by a legal engineer?

• What is the process of developing a use case for a client?

• And many more...

In writing these articles, I do not just seek to argue how legal engineering is a type of engineering. I hope to convince and excite you about my work, which sits at the heart of legal AI and legaltech, so you can share its potential with the rest of the world.  

Hopefully you find this worth a read every other week.