Level

Harvey

Applied Legal Researcher

Harvey is hiring an Applied Legal Researcher in New York, United States. It pays $180k-$220k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Harvey.

Level's read on this job

  • Works on AI ●●●○ is how Level rates this role: the daily work is on AI products, without building the model.
  • Tools and skills the posting cites include prompt engineering, fine tuning and AI research.
  • Level classifies it as a mid-level role.
  • Level lists 357 other open roles at Harvey.

AI in this role

prompt-engineeringfine-tuningai-research
Why Harvey

At Harvey, we’re transforming how legal and professional services operate. By combining frontier agentic AI, an enterprise-grade platform, and deep domain expertise, we’re reshaping how critical knowledge work gets done for decades to come.

This is a rare chance to help build a generational company at a true inflection point. We have strong product-market fit and world-class investor support. We’re scaling fast and defining a new category in real time. The work is ambitious, the bar is high, and the opportunity for growth — personal, professional, and financial — is unmatched.

Our team moves fast, takes ownership, and is deeply committed to the mission — operating with intensity, staying close to our customers, and pushing each other for excellence. We live by three values: Decisiveness, Simplicity, and Job's Not Finished. We act quickly on clear judgment over perfect information, we believe simplicity is what scales, and we're never satisfied with where we are. If you want to do the best work of your career alongside people who share that drive, we'd love to build with you.

At Harvey, the future of professional services is being written today — and we’re just getting started.

Role Overview

We are looking for a legal researcher with a strong understanding of how law firms, financial institutions, large corporations, and other organizations deliver professional services and execute complex legal and knowledge work tasks. We have incredible product-market fit and demand across diverse customer profiles. Executing on this demand requires a strong understanding of our customers' workflows and how those workflows can be accelerated by AI systems.

What You'll Do

To facilitate the development of these systems, you will:

  • Develop and deliver subject-matter expertise to support AI research

  • Work closely with our engineering, product, and design teams to define and develop AI systems

  • Build and improve AI systems through prompt engineering, fine tuning, and other techniques

  • Build proprietary benchmarks and datasets to evaluate models and model systems

  • Partner directly with clients to understand their workflows, identify pain points, and translate complex business and legal requirements into technical solutions

What You Have
  • JD from a top US law school or equivalent post-graduate qualification

  • 3-7 years of experience at a US law firm, financial institution, or equivalent professional service provider

  • For NYC applicants: experience working in-house or at a financial institution

  • Demonstrated ability to deliver high quality work product on demanding deadlines

  • Ability to effectively communicate with a variety internal and external stakeholders and translate complex problems effectively between them

  • Ability to define positive outcomes in situations with underspecified success criteria

  • Deep intellectual curiosity and eagerness to learn across domains

  • Willingness and desire to do work in the trenches - e.g., grading hundreds of answers, breaking down thousands of documents - getting the models to do junior associate work requires a lot of things that look like junior associate work

Compensation Range

$180,000 - $220,000 USD

Depending on your location, an Applicant Privacy Notice may apply to you. You can find all of our Applicant Privacy Notices [here].

Harvey is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or related condition, or any other basis protected by law.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made by emailing accommodations@harvey.ai

How we rate this

Applied Legal Researcher at Harvey rates 68 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Works on AI (AI Level 3 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Works on AI. The daily work is on AI products, without building the model.

  1. ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
  2. ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
  3. ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
  4. ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.

Prepare for this job

Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

Prompt engineeringFine-tuningAI Research

Questions you could be asked

  1. How do you structure and test a prompt to get consistent output from a language model?
  2. Walk me through fine-tuning a model: what data did you use, and how did you check the result?
  3. Tell me about a research question you investigated. What did you find?
  4. Describe a typical day in a role like this one: which parts run through AI directly?
  5. If you removed AI from this role, what would be left, and how do you decide what still needs a human?

Adapt your resume

  • List these exact terms on your resume: Prompt engineering, Fine-tuning, and AI Research. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
  • Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
  • Show where AI is part of your daily process, not a one-off project. This role expects it to be a running habit.

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