Legal Subject Matter Expert (SME)

Role Overview

We are seeking an experienced Legal Subject Matter Expert (SME) with sharp analytical skills and a deep understanding of legal frameworks to join our AI training and model development team. The ideal candidate will bring broad expertise in the legal sector—including litigation, corporate law, regulatory compliance, contract management, and intellectual property—to help train, evaluate, and fine-tune AI models. Your goal is to ensure the highest levels of accuracy, jurisdictional relevance, and logical reasoning within the AI’s output.

You will work with cross-functional teams of data scientists, AI engineers, and product teams to build intelligent legal solutions such as automated contract review tools, legal research assistants, and compliance monitoring engines.

Project Goal & Scope: The goal is to construct high-quality datasets that represent realistic, end-to-end legal workflows and professional skills. These datasets will train and test the model''s ability to act as a competent and helpful Legal Associate or Counsel. We are pursuing a dataset that represents work beyond simple retrieval or isolated definitions; instead, it should demonstrate real-world use cases performed by mid and senior-career legal experts.

Key Responsibilities

• Domain Oversight: Serve as the primary legal authority during the training and fine-tuning of AI models, ensuring all outputs adhere to legal standards and correct terminology.
• Knowledge Architecture: Develop knowledge bases, legal taxonomies, and ontologies that reflect multi-jurisdictional standards and complex legal hierarchies.
• Data Validation: Annotate, label, and validate datasets with specific legal knowledge (e.g., case law citations, statutory interpretations, and contractual clauses).
• Prompt Engineering & Strategy: Collaborate with AI/ML engineers to design training data strategies and prompt engineering techniques specifically tailored for legal reasoning and drafting.
• Model Audit: Provide expert feedback on model outputs, identifying "hallucinations," legal inaccuracies, or ambiguities to improve the model’s reliability in high-stakes environments.
• Business Alignment: Partner with product teams to align AI capabilities with legal objectives, such as reducing discovery timelines or automating risk assessment.
• Regulatory Watch: Stay current with emerging trends in LegalTech and AI-related regulations to ensure ethical and compliant model implementation.

Project details

• Duration: Tasks for this project are expected to be available for 3 months (with potential extensions).
• Location: Remote (You must be based in the United States).
• Type: Freelance/Independent contractor.
• Payout structure:
• Schedule Flexibility: Hours are flexible and based on the applicant''s availability. Tasks can be worked on Mon-Sun.

Required Qualifications

• Education: Juris Doctor (JD) or Master of Laws (LLM) from an accredited law school. Active bar membership is a plus.
• Experience: 10–20 years of experience in the legal sector (e.g., private practice, in-house counsel, or legal research).
• Analytical Precision: Proven ability to translate complex legal processes into structured logic and data requirements.
• Communication: Exceptional writing and verbal skills, with the ability to bridge the gap between technical AI teams and legal stakeholders.
• Systems Knowledge: Familiarity with legal tech stacks such as CLM (Contract Lifecycle Management), eDiscovery platforms, or legal research databases (Westlaw/LexisNexis).

AI Familiarity

• Familiarity with Generative AI concepts, prompt engineering, and data preparation is a plus.
• Awareness of ethical Generative AI practices, including bias detection and responsible data usage.

Why this matters

By shaping the data and benchmarks these models rely on, you''ll help ensure that Generative AI is accurate, reliable, and aligned with the standards of your professional field. This is a unique opportunity to apply your domain knowledge at the cutting edge of technology.