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Legal IT

Are lawyers becoming legal engineers?

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This is the second of two articles that deal with legal engineering. In the previous article, we explained what legal engineering is. In this second article, the focus is on whether lawyers are becoming legal engineers. We answer the questions: What do legal engineers do? Are lawyers becoming legal engineers? Why are lawyers becoming legal engineers? How is this transition happening.  And what does this mean for the future.

What do legal engineers do?

We already paid attention to this question in the previous article, but a quick recap may be in order. Traditional lawyers apply the law to specific cases. Legal engineers design, build, and maintain smart software systems to deliver legal services faster and more efficiently. In other words, instead of just researching case law, legal engineers translate complex legal expertise into structured data and AI instructions.

Their core responsibilities fall into four categories. The first one is workflow automation where they streamline repetitive legal tasks. Next, there is document automation which involves coding and configuring dynamic document templates. Then, there is system implementation which has to do with setting up Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) software and AI-native tools. Finally, there is process optimization which includes removing bottlenecks and standardizing how legal services are produced.

Are lawyers becoming legal engineers?

We are living in a software-driven world. As a result, the legal profession is undergoing one of its most significant transformations in centuries. Law firms are not only using software to manage their law firms, but also to manage legal knowledge, and now even to do legal work. Tom Martin from Lawdroid wrote an article that law firms are becoming software companies. The logical consequence is that law firms need legal engineers. Hence the question, “Are lawyers becoming legal engineers?”

The answer is nuanced. Three groups can be distinguished: 1) some lawyers are actively embracing the shift, 2) many are being nudged toward it, and 3) – as often is the case when it comes to technology – a few are resisting it entirely. But these changes where law firms become software driven are structural, which means the pressure to adapt is not likely to ease.

Why are lawyers becoming legal engineers?

So, why are lawyers becoming legal engineers? There are several factors to consider.

For decades, the legal industry operated on a model of billed hours and there was little incentive to change that. Clients paid premium rates for work that, in many cases, was repetitive and process-driven rather than genuinely complex. The arrival of legaltech – and more recently, generative AI – has caused a serious disruption. Tasks that once justified hours of time, such as document review, contract drafting, and legal research, can now be performed by software in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost. As a result, law firms and corporate legal departments now need hybrid professionals who can bridge the gap between human legal judgment and machine outputs.

Add to that, that there also is an increased demand for efficiency. Clients expect more scalable, cost-effective solutions rather than relying solely on traditional, manual (artisanal) legal work. This has created an uncomfortable reality for many lawyers. The traditional entry-level legal career used to be about learning the craft by doing high-volume, lower-complexity work. These days, junior lawyers at some firms are already finding that the work they expected to do for their first few years is being automated.

Do They Have To?

This is where the debate gets interesting. Not every lawyer needs to become a software developer or a process engineer. Courtroom advocacy, complex negotiations, constitutional litigation, and sensitive family law work still demand deeply human qualities. Judgment, empathy, persuasion, ethical reasoning still cannot be replicated by an algorithm. There will always be a market for lawyers who are simply outstanding at being lawyers in the traditional sense.

The question now is to what degree lawyers can avoid becoming legal engineers. Even lawyers who never write a line of code will increasingly be expected to understand what technology can and cannot do. They will have to collaborate with legal engineers and data scientists, and to make informed decisions about which tools to deploy in which contexts. So, what we are witnessing is that technological literacy is becoming an essential professional competency rather than a specialisation.

How is this transition happening?

We mentioned above that some lawyers are actively embracing this evolution, while others are being nudged towards it. (For the third group, the transition isn’t happening yet). Let’s have a closer look at these two groups.

The pioneers

A growing group of lawyers has responded with enthusiasm. They retrained in data science, learned to code in Python or JavaScript, or pursued formal qualifications in legal technology. They have moved into roles that did not exist a decade ago, like legal operations director, contract intelligence specialist, or legaltech product counsel. In many cases, they have salaries and influence that rival or exceed those of traditional partners.

Law schools have responded by expanding their offerings, too. All the big names are producing graduates who are as comfortable discussing APIs and workflow automation as they are analysing case law. These graduates are already legal engineers when they enter the workforce.

The followers who are being pushed into legal engineering

Corporate clients are the major buyers of legal services. They have become increasingly sophisticated and demanding. General counsels at large companies now routinely employ legal operations teams with jobs that technically speaking aren’t legal, but necessary, nonetheless. These jobs include extracting more value from external law firms, deploying technology to manage legal work in-house, and rigorously measuring outcomes.

The result is that law firms competing for corporate work are under pressure to demonstrate technological competence. Some have established dedicated legal engineering teams or innovation labs. Others have formed partnerships with legaltech companies, and some acquired technology firms outright. The message from the market is clear: legal expertise alone is no longer a sufficient differentiator.

Regulatory bodies are also paying attention. The Solicitors Regulation Authority in England and Wales has signalled that technology competence is becoming part of what it means to be a fit and proper lawyer. In the US, the ethical duty of technology competence is primarily governed by ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.1, which requires a lawyer to provide “competent representation.” Similar conversations are happening in Australia, Singapore, and across the European Union.

What does this mean for the future?

The most likely outcome is not that all lawyers become legal engineers, but that the profession bifurcates more sharply than it has in the past. On one side will be highly specialised human advisers handling complex, high-stakes, judgment-intensive work. On the other will be legal engineers and legaltech product builders designing the systems that handle everything else. The lawyers who thrive will be those who understand where they sit in that landscape and invest accordingly.

For law students entering the profession today, the message is clear. Acquiring some technical fluency – even if it stops well short of deep engineering expertise – substantially broadens career options and provides resilience against automation. The lawyers who treat technology as someone else’s problem are taking a serious professional risk.

 

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