The Institute forLegalEngineering™Institute for Legal Engineering™
The Institute for Legal Engineering™ is developing professional standards and independent certification, training and professional development, and a continuing research programme.
01 / About The Institute
Our purpose is to help employers understand and recognise competence—and help people develop and demonstrate the expertise their work requires.
Our institutional engagement focuses on professional and regulatory bodies in the UK. We are seeking their formal input on the competencies and professional requirements that will inform legal engineering standards and certification.
Our ambition is to serve as an independent professional body for legal engineering, developing a shared framework for competence and recognition in which employers, individuals, training providers and specialist communities can participate.
Our wider ambition is international, drawing on different legal systems, organisational settings, and forms of legal and technical work.
02 / The problem
People entering legal engineering, or developing existing expertise, face varied courses, qualifications and credentials. Understanding what to choose—and what each route demonstrates—can be difficult.
What knowledge and practical capability does a programme develop? How are they assessed? What does its credential tell an employer?
Employers face related questions. Roles carrying the same title can involve different responsibilities, while relevant expertise also exists under other job titles. A credential needs to communicate what was assessed, against which requirements and through what evidence.
Different roles can legitimately require different specialisms and levels. Our aim is to establish meaningful expectations and credible ways to demonstrate competence.
03 / Independence
Technology vendors and training providers contribute valuable expertise. The competencies of the wider field also need to reflect professional requirements, evidence of work and the needs of employers and individuals.
The Institute’s independence from technology vendors and external training providers is central to its purpose.
We also intend to provide training ourselves. Our courses and external training programmes should be subject to equivalent requirements and scrutiny. We are developing governance and assessment arrangements to protect standards and certification decisions from our own training interests.
Training will prepare candidates for assessment. Certification will depend on demonstrating competence against defined requirements through independent assessment.
04 / Our work
Developing the competencies and professional requirements legal engineering work demands, and an independent assessment and certification approach through which people can demonstrate that they meet them.
Developing and providing training against those standards to prepare people for independent assessment and certification, alongside continuing opportunities to develop their expertise.
Our longer-term aim is to recognise external training programmes against shared competency and assessment requirements. Training providers and specialist communities would be able to seek recognition of relevant programmes within this professional framework. Recognition of a programme would be distinct from an individual’s certification, which would depend on independent assessment.
Examining how legal engineering work is performed, developed and recognised. Research will inform, test and refine the standards, assessment, certification and training.
05 / Formal consultation
We are preparing a formal consultation on the competencies legal engineering requires, how they should be assessed and what certification should demonstrate.
We are seeking formal input from existing professional and regulatory bodies on the professional competencies and requirements that will inform legal engineering standards and certification.
We are also seeking formal input from employers, recruiters, universities and people working across law and technology on the competencies the work requires, how they should be assessed and what certification should demonstrate.
This work will build on relevant existing professional frameworks and recognition schemes, while examining the needs of different roles, specialisms and levels.
Consultation in preparationThe consultation scope, questions, timetable and response process are being developed. Details of how to contribute will be published here.
Express interest in contributing06 / Our research
Our continuing research informs the development of competency frameworks, professional standards, independent assessment and certification, and training for legal engineering.
We examine how legal knowledge, engineering methods and technical skills come together in practice. Our evidence includes employer recruitment materials, accounts of work, established professional frameworks and scholarship on the relationship between law and technology, extending beyond generative AI.
Three questions guide this work:
Which knowledge, skills and behaviours matter for particular responsibilities, and how do requirements vary between roles and organisations?
What evidence shows that someone can perform the work to an appropriate standard? How should qualifications, experience and practical assessment contribute?
How could clearer expectations help employers recruit and develop their teams, and help people gain recognition for their work and progress in their careers?
The occupational evidence is exploratory. It illustrates differences in roles and expectations rather than providing a representative picture of the employment market.
Publication, consultation and initial framework development will progress alongside one another. Findings will inform the scope and viability of the proposed standards and certification approach.
07 / The opening series
Parts 1 and 2 publishedOur opening eight-part series examines what legal engineering involves, the competencies the work requires, and how expertise can be developed, assessed and recognised. It asks what professional frameworks and institutions could contribute.
Why the same term describes different activities, roles and expectations, and why those differences matter.
Read Part 1The historical development of computational approaches to law and their relationship to contemporary legal engineering work.
Read Part 2How employers, people doing the work, universities, technology businesses and professional communities shape the field.
What recruitment records and accounts of work reveal about responsibilities, entry routes and evidence of competence.
How definitions influence whose expertise counts and what happens when those definitions become frameworks or standards.
What engineering contributes, how responsibilities are distributed and where different forms of expertise meet.
The practical questions connecting recruitment, recognition, development and career progression.
What professional frameworks and institutions could contribute, and how their usefulness and authority would need to be established.
The articles will be published progressively. The series opens a continuing research programme informing The Institute’s standards, assessment, independent certification and training work.
08 / Perspectives
Short pieces examining the professional questions shaping legal engineering.
We explore what developments in technology mean for professional responsibility, education, standards and practice.
Forthcoming
The wider legal, regulatory and professional environment, and what it means for legal engineering standards and competence.
Forthcoming
How professional education, workplace training and supervision can prepare junior lawyers to build responsibly, recognise issues and apply appropriate safeguards.
09 / People behind The Institute
Founder and Research Lead
Senior Tech Counsel
Emmanuel is a UK-qualified lawyer with around 20 years’ experience advising businesses, leading legal functions and developing legal processes and systems. He is currently Senior Counsel – Group Technology Legal at Kingfisher, having previously held in-house roles at Deloitte and GSK.
His experience of trying to enter legal engineering highlighted a disconnect between advertised entry requirements and employers’ expectations in practice. That experience helped prompt The Institute’s research into competencies, entry routes and recognition.
The Institute is currently supported by volunteers from different professional disciplines, contributing their time and expertise as we develop its research programme and establish its operations.
10 / Contact
Express interest in the consultation or contact The Institute with another enquiry.