Senior Counsel Legal AI Training Expert

About OpenTrain

OpenTrain is the #1 platform for finding and building careers in AI training and data labeling. We help people discover specialized projects, build a professional profile, and apply in minutes. Creating an OpenTrain account is free.

OpenTrain AI is recruiting contractors for advanced legal AI training and evaluation work that connects professional legal expertise with the development of cutting-edge AI systems.

• Build experience in a fast-growing AI training industry
• Apply your professional expertise to how advanced AI systems reason and communicate
• Manage your AI training career through an OpenTrain profile

About Legal AI Training

AI training is the human side of building artificial intelligence. Specialists review model outputs, create high-quality examples, write evaluation criteria, and provide feedback that helps models become more accurate, useful, and reliable.

Legal experts are especially important because plausible-sounding errors can fail professional scrutiny. Your work will translate nuanced legal judgment into explicit standards that researchers and models can use.

• Evaluate generated responses for legal accuracy and reasoning quality
• Create instruction specifications and golden solutions
• Design benchmarks that measure improvement on challenging legal work

The Role

OpenTrain is seeking a Senior Counsel, Legal Domain Expert to support research and program management teams working to improve how frontier AI models reason about real legal work. You will review legal knowledge work tasks and model outputs, define what strong legal reasoning looks like, and help establish consistent evaluation standards.

The role requires substantial post-qualification legal experience and genuine specialization in at least one substantive practice area. You will work at the intersection of legal practice, written evaluation, and large language model development.

• Subject matter: Legal AI training and evaluation
• Initial engagement: 6 months
• Location: Bay Area, California
• Work arrangement: Hybrid
• Engagement type: Contractor
• Time requirement: 20+ hours per week
• The role description identifies the position as full-time, while structured details list part-time contractor work at 20+ hours per week; confirm the schedule during the hiring process

What You'll Do

You will bring senior-level legal judgment to the creation and evaluation of training data. The work includes identifying subtle weaknesses in model reasoning and making expert standards clear, consistent, and teachable.

• Review the quality of legal knowledge work tasks and model outputs
• Identify missing behaviors, thin reasoning, and answers that would not survive professional scrutiny
• Write high-quality instruction specifications defining correct legal reasoning
• Produce golden solutions to legal problems
• Define new legal tasks reflecting real legal practice
• Design challenging legal tasks and evaluation sets to measure model improvement
• Work with researchers and specialists in adjacent fields to keep standards consistent
• Translate tacit legal judgment into explicit, teachable criteria
• Provide precise, well-structured written feedback

Requirements

This opportunity is intended for an experienced practicing or formerly practicing attorney who can assess legal reasoning at a high professional standard and explain that assessment clearly in writing.

• Juris Doctor degree from an accredited law school; a highly ranked school is strongly preferred
• Eight to 15 years of substantive post-qualification legal practice
• Experience at a reputable established law firm, corporate legal department, regulatory body, or court
• Current or prior experience at the counsel, senior associate, senior in-house counsel, or Assistant General Counsel level
• Real ownership of legal matters
• Genuine specialization in at least one substantive area such as corporate and transactional law, litigation, regulatory law, intellectual property, employment, or tax
• Admission to at least one U.S. state bar in good standing
• Hands-on professional use of large language models
• Ability to distinguish well-reasoned legal answers from plausible-sounding but incorrect answers
• Excellent written communication skills

Who Should Apply

Apply if you have developed strong independent legal judgment and want to help shape how advanced AI systems handle professional legal work. This is a specialist opportunity for attorneys who can move beyond spotting errors and articulate the standards, reasoning, and criteria behind a high-quality answer.

Your experience may come from a law firm, in-house legal department, regulatory organization, or court, provided you have owned substantive matters and can communicate your analysis with precision.

• Senior associates, counsel, senior in-house counsel, and Assistant General Counsel may be a strong fit
• Attorneys with corporate, transactional, litigation, regulatory, IP, employment, or tax expertise are encouraged to consider the role
• Professionals who have used large language models in their legal work can apply that experience directly

How It Works

AI training projects use expert review and carefully written examples to improve model behavior. In this role, your legal analysis will help define the difference between an answer that merely sounds credible and one that meets professional standards.

OpenTrain makes it easier to start and grow an AI training career by bringing opportunities together, supporting profile building, and enabling applications in minutes. Create a free account to begin the process.

• Review the opportunity and submit your application through OpenTrain
• Showcase your legal practice background, specialization, bar admission, and language model experience
• Discuss the engagement scope, schedule, and role requirements during the hiring process