Applications Engineer

Overview

Cleary Gottlieb is a pioneer in globalizing the legal profession. We have 14 offices in major financial centers around the world, but we operate as a single, integrated global partnership and not as a U.S. firm with a network of overseas locations. The firm employs approximately 1,100 lawyers from more than 50 countries.

Since 1946 our lawyers and staff have worked across practices, industries, jurisdictions, and continents to provide clients with simple, actionable approaches to their most complex legal and business challenges, whether domestic or international. We support every client relationship with intellectual agility, commercial acumen, and a human touch.

The Applications Engineer delivers and supports the Firm’s practice and AI technology solutions. The role works with attorneys, professional staff, internal IT teams, and vendors to configure, implement, integrate, maintain, and enhance these solutions. Key applications include document management, document automation, and AI-assisted legal drafting and research tools, among other practice technology applications.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the technical owner and primary technical resource for assigned practice and AI technology solutions.
• Configure, customize, and administer assigned applications, including user access, permissions, data governance, and other operational settings.
• Provide level two and level three support; investigate complex issues and coordinate resolution with vendors and internal IT teams.
• Partner with attorneys and professional staff to understand legal workflows, review business requirements, and translate requirements into technical specifications for application configuration, integrations, data migration, and reporting.
• Plan and execute application upgrades, feature releases, and other enhancements in accordance with the Firm’s change-management processes.
• Develop test plans, perform quality assurance and regression testing, coordinate user acceptance testing, and validate software deliverables.
• Maintain productive vendor relationships, manage support cases and escalations, and remain informed about product roadmaps and relevant new capabilities.
• Create and maintain technical, operational, and support documentation, including procedures, configuration records, process guides, technical diagrams, and knowledge articles.
• Collaborate with project managers, business analysts, infrastructure teams, the Enterprise Applications team, and other stakeholders to deliver projects and operational improvements.
• Work with Information Security, Risk, Privacy, and other governance functions to support application assessments and ensure assigned solutions comply with Firm requirements.
• Monitor application health, usage, and support trends; identify opportunities to improve reliability, service delivery, and workflow efficiency.
• Assume ownership of project tasks, communicate status and risks clearly, and see work through to completion.
• Support the evaluation and implementation of additional practice and AI technology solutions as the application portfolio evolves.
• Support attorney and staff adoption of legal AI tools by advising on capabilities, use cases, and appropriate use consistent with Firm AI policies.

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Information Systems, Information Technology, or a related field.
• Five or more years of relevant experience, including at least three years in application engineering, application administration, or a similar role supporting enterprise or legal technology applications.
• Experience implementing, administering, and supporting enterprise and SaaS applications, enabling and configuring third-party integrations, and working with Information Security to configure Entra ID SSO applications and permissions.
• Strong analytical, troubleshooting, problem-solving, testing, documentation, and organizational skills, including the ability to translate business requirements into practical technical solutions.
• Strong oral and written communication skills, including the ability to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ability to work independently within a team environment, manage competing priorities, exercise sound judgment, and take initiative.

Preferred Qualifications

• Law firm experience implementing and supporting solutions from vendors such as iManage, Litera, vLex, Legora, Harvey, or Anthropic.
• Understanding of legal workflows, document management, legal drafting, research, litigation, knowledge management, or other practice-support processes.
• Experience with legal AI tools or other AI-enabled applications, workflow automation, or AI governance.

The estimated base salary range for this position is $140,000 to $160,000 at the time of posting. The actual salary offered will depend on a variety of job-related factors, including skills, education, training, credentials, experience, scope and complexity of role responsibilities, geographic location, and performance. This role is exempt meaning it is not overtime pay eligible.

Cleary provides a comprehensive benefits package, including health care benefits. More information can be found here: Benefits

We are an equal opportunity employer and prohibit discrimination based on any category protected by law. Cleary provides reasonable accommodations to enable otherwise qualified employees to perform the essential functions of their position, provided the accommodation does not pose an undue hardship to the Firm.

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