The Legal Knowledge Engineer - My Story - The Legal Knowledge Engineer

Hi, I’m Helen

I am The Legal Knowledge Engineer – or LKE for short.

Since 2017, I’ve been working with LegalTech/LawTech, specialising in document automation.

This year, I joined the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives as an Associate member.

How I became a Legal Knowledge Engineer

My route to Legal Knowledge Engineering was a little circuitous, so bear with me as I run you through it.

When I headed to university with no idea what I would do at the end of it. I read history, studying everything from Vikings and crusades to the swinging sixties. If I specialised, it was in historiography – the writing of history – so what I took from my degree was a solid grounding in how we got here, and how to interpret what remains.

I stayed for an MA because I wanted to do more research – apparently one 20k word dissertation wasn’t enough for me – and because I found exactly the course I needed to study: International Politics of the Internet. This was run by the International Relations department, in conjunction with the Law and Computer Science departments. I had touched on international law and technology during my BA, but it was during my post-grad year that it became part of my career.

Next, I joined the workforce. I started out working in the medical industry, automating testing methods for research in the field of neurology. I still didn’t really know what I wanted to do with myself, so I took a job that used the skills I had, and then worked out what was missing. For me it was law, so I started studying part time for a GDL so that I could pursue a legal career.

It took two years to complete the GDL part time, and it was in January of 2017, shortly before completing my GDL, that I found the role of LKE.

Since then, I have joined CILEx as an Associate member, and am working on my Level 6 exams.

My life as a Legal Knowledge Engineer

Now, I work for one of the big legal information companies in the legal services sector. I specialise in document automation and lead a team of LKEs and developers based around the world. Read more about my role here.

Disclaimer

It won’t take much for the interested person to discover where I am currently employed. I don’t plan to shout about it on this platform, but nor will I go out of my way to hide it. For the record – any opinions or views expressed on this site are my own and do not necessary reflect those held by my employer.