Harvey wants to define Big Law’s newest career path

Harvey has launched a certification programme designed to establish a common foundation for the growing ranks of legal engineers.

An emerging role in the legal sector, legal engineers bridge the gap between lawyers and AI, helping firms find practical ways to use the technology.

The free, self-paced qualification is aimed at lawyers, legal operations professionals and legal technology specialists, regardless of whether they or their employer use Harvey.

‍The demand

Tammy Murray, Harvey's VP of Legal Engineering, said demand for people with the skillset had grown rapidly as the company's customers invested in their own legal engineering capabilities.

"Given those requests have picked up steam over the past six months, we thought now was a great time to put something out for the legal engineering community to get started with,” she said.

"Importantly, it's free and open to everyone. You don't need to be a Harvey customer or have a Harvey account. We want to make what we've learned available to the entire legal community."

Emerging role

The programme centres on four capabilities: legal expertise, AI and technology fluency, process design and improvement, and the ability to support adoption across an organisation.

Harvey expects participants to include lawyers who are already becoming internal AI specialists, alongside professionals working in legal operations, innovation and technology.

The certification comes as legal engineering develops into a more established career track. Legal AI companies including Harvey, Legora and Luminance employ legal engineers, while law firms increasingly recruit for similar roles within their innovation teams

"Lawyers increasingly need to understand how to use AI effectively and responsibly in their own practice," Murray said. "Legal engineers take that further by looking across an organisation, identifying where technology can improve how legal work gets done, designing better processes, and helping teams adopt those new ways of working."

The cert

The course takes around two hours to complete and combines videos, readings, exercises and scenario-based learning. Participants must achieve 80% in a final assessment to receive the Harvey Legal Engineer – Level 1 credential.

Mila Owen, a legal engineer at Harvey in London, and formerly an associate at Kirkland and White & Case, said: "One of the hardest things to codify was the judgment and the ability to influence behaviour that effective legal engineering requires. Technology is only part of the equation.”

Owen said one of the programme's central principles is to approach AI implementation through the work itself rather than starting with the capabilities of the technology.

"Instead of asking, 'What can AI do?', start by understanding how people work, where they're spending their time, where there is friction, and where there's an opportunity to improve the process," she said.

"That ability to identify the right problem, apply technology thoughtfully, and demonstrate real value is at the heart of legal engineering.”

What’s next

Murray said: “As demand for legal engineering talent grows, the certification will provide a strong foundation for people entering the field and help build a broader community of talent.”

The Level 1 designation leaves scope for Harvey to develop more advanced qualifications covering areas including workflow and process design, AI agents, customisation and integrations.

"We want to learn from how our customers and the wider legal community engage with Level 1 before being prescriptive about what comes next," Murray said.