Job description
Trellis Research provides legal intelligence and judicial analytics directly to law firms. We aggregate state trial court data and make it searchable, providing lawyers practical, data-backed intel on the way judges are ruling at the state court level. We’re already the leading provider of state trial court data. Ultimately, the future of practicing law will revolve around the ability to effectively combine data, technology, and analytics to gain a strategic competitive advantage for your client. Join Trellis as we transform legal research.
Trellis Research is seeking an experienced Legal AI Prompt Engineer. This role focuses on (1) leveraging LLM prompt strategies to (1) design, refine, test, and deliver custom AI tools for our legal researcher user base; and (2) to enhance our legal database’s current research capabilities. This role requires civil litigation experience as a licensed U.S. attorney, as well as experience with prompt engineering.
The Legal AI Prompt Engineer is positioned with the company’s AI attorney team, which is a part of the company’s Product Department. This position will collaborate closely with attorneys and engineers/data scientists. The role demands malleable communication skills, creative problem-solving, and analytical rigor as a subject matter expert in both civil litigation practice and prompt engineering.
We are a remote-first company, with the option for hybrid work in the office if you are based in Southern California. If working remotely, applicants must be able to provide their own computer, monitor, and internet connection.
What You’ll Do:
- Assist in vetting AI tool ideas designed for legal researchers.
- Design, test, and optimize LLM prompts and prompt chaining techniques that leverage our state trial court / civil litigation data.
- Advise on AI best practices, including model selection, prompt chaining techniques, prompt tuning, and solution scalability.
- Apply scalable prompt engineering and prompt chaining techniques—crafting, testing, and refining prompts.
- Conduct prompt evaluations, failure analysis, and subsequently iterate on prompts to reduce any hallucinations and improve outputs.
- Conduct output evaluations from a legal perspective to ensure accuracy and context-relevant results.
- Collaborate closely with multiple teams.
- Work closely with a team of fellow AI attorneys on the above.
- Work closely with engineers to integrate prompt solutions.
- Work closely with non-attorneys (engineers, sales, etc.) to help them understand civil litigation documents, court dockets, and related AI tool prompts/outputs.
- Have a seat at the table as we continue to iterate on the product and have a direct impact on the success of the company
Required Experience:
- JD degree from U.S. accredited law school.
- Bar: Any U.S. jurisdiction preferred.
- 3+ years of civil litigation attorney experience, including and/or familiarity with navigating state trial court websites, dockets, and civil litigation procedures, filings, and orders.
- 1+ years of experience with prompt engineering, working with LLMs–particularly OpenAI models–for real-world applications.
Required skills:
- LLM Expertise: Understanding of LLM capabilities and limitations. Proficiency is crafting, testing, and refining prompts that produce consistent, accurate, and relevant AI outputs.
- Legal Domain Adaptation: Ability to adapt AI models to legal domain through effective prompt strategies, content framing, and legal terminology integration.
- Analytical Skills: Strong analytical capabilities to evaluate prompt performance, identify patterns in AI responses. Strong legal analysis capabilities to evaluate prompt output for accuracy.
- User Experience Focus: Strong user-centric mindset with the ability to design AI interactions that feel natural, helpful, and aligned with legal researcher expectations and needs.
- Adaptability: Ability to quickly learn new technologies and adapt to evolving needs and capabilities
- Communication: Excellent communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to explain complex legal concepts to non-attorneys.
- Collaborative Mindset: Have a positive attitude (a real desire to join our team and help it thrive) when working with other team members.
We Offer:
- Flexible remote-first work culture (with office space in Los Angeles).
- We cover 100% of health, dental, and vision insurance for you (and 100% for spouses and dependents).
- We have a 401(k) retirement savings plan with employer matching contributions.
