A Day in the Life: US Legal Engineer at Orbital

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The Legal Engineer Role

The Legal Engineer role combines legal expertise with technical product development. After several years in real estate law, I transitioned to this role to work at the intersection of law and AI technology. For a UK perspective on the role, check out Tassneem’s post on what it’s like to be a Legal Engineer at our London office.

As a US Legal Engineer based in New York, my days mainly consist of collaborative meetings with teammates across the US and UK, and deep technical work improving the prompts and knowledge bases that power Orbital Copilot. Here’s what a typical day looks like when I head into our NY office:

A day in the life at Orbital as a US Legal Engineer

9:00am – I arrive at our New York office, coffee in hand, ready to start the day. After catching up on early morning messages from our UK colleagues, my first task is a touchpoint call with Michelle Pekular, a US Legal Engineer who works remotely from Pittsburgh. These morning check-ins are invaluable. We share project updates, discuss challenges, and exchange ideas. Today, I’m seeking Michelle’s advice on updating one of our blueprints for GPT-5.2’s latest capabilities. Her recent experience with similar updates helps me think through the structure more clearly. These informal knowledge-sharing sessions are one of the best parts of working in a distributed team.

11:00am – Time for the weekly “office hours” meeting with Michelle and Ben Sainsbury, the Head of Legal Engineering. Ben creates a space where we can bring any and all questions, seek project clarity, and get guidance on everything from complex prompting challenges to strategic priorities. We discuss our plans for the week, ensuring alignment on priorities.

11:30am – Our weekly legal engineering AI brainstorming meeting kicks off. Matt Westcott, Orbital’s VP of AI, joins the US and UK legal engineers along with our US Legal Solutions Architects (who work on pre-sales and post-sales onboarding). This is an open forum where we come prepared with questions about the latest AI advancements, technical challenges, and product development. Today, we discuss recent breakthroughs in AI reasoning capabilities, what the AI engineering team is building, and how those developments will impact Orbital Copilot. We analyze competing legal AI products and explore what makes Orbital’s approach different.

12:30pm – With morning meetings wrapped, I take a lunch break. One of my favorite things about the Orbital office culture is that we all eat lunch together. It’s a nice break in the day to relax, chat about non-work stuff, and get to know colleagues from different teams.

1:30pm – The afternoon is dedicated to what I consider the core of my role and the most fun: prompting and knowledge base development. I’m updating one of our blueprints to align with GPT-5.2’s enhanced capabilities. Blueprints are frameworks that guide how Orbital Copilot approaches certain tasks and outputs. As AI models evolve, we refine these blueprints to leverage new capabilities while maintaining the accuracy our customers depend on.

I test different prompt structures, evaluate outputs, and iterate based on results. It’s like working a puzzle, every word matters and small tweaks can dramatically change the quality of the response. When you finally find the right combination and see the AI produce exactly the nuanced legal analysis you were aiming for, it’s genuinely exciting. That “aha” moment when everything clicks makes the meticulous iteration worthwhile.

Alongside blueprint updates, I’m creating corresponding knowledge base entries that allow Orbital Copilot to provide more accurate, context-aware answers. These entries capture domain-specific information, legal principles, common scenarios, and best practices the AI references when generating responses.

I test my updates, running queries through the updated blueprint and checking how the new knowledge base entries are utilized. The results are promising—responses are more nuanced and accurate. I identify areas needing refinement and document findings to share with the team.

4:30pm – Time to review customer feedback. This week, I’m on the rota to work through feedback that customers have shared with us and debug any challenges they’ve flagged. I dig into the issues they’ve raised, test potential fixes, and work on improvements to address their needs. This direct line to customer feedback informs everything we build. It’s the perfect blend of customer insight and product development, and it keeps us closely connected to the real-world impact of our work.

5:30pm – As I wrap up the customer feedback review and pack up for the day, I update Michelle on my progress via Slack and scan Slack for any new messages. The variety in this role keeps things interesting with collaborative meetings in the morning, heads-down prompting work in the afternoon, and real customer feedback to close out the day. It’s a nice mix of using my legal background in ways I never expected and learning new technical skills along the way.

Final Thoughts

Transitioning from legal practice to legal engineering wasn’t something I initially planned, but it’s been incredibly rewarding. The legal profession is undergoing fundamental transformation driven by AI, and being part of that transformation is energizing.

What makes this role particularly fulfilling is the immediate impact. When I improve a prompt or add a knowledge base entry, those changes go live as soon as they pass validation and testing—customers using Orbital Copilot get better answers, save time, and focus on higher-value work almost immediately. There’s no waiting months for a release cycle; the improvements I make today are helping lawyers do their jobs better tomorrow.

The collaborative environment at Orbital is unlike traditional legal practice. Working with AI engineers, product managers, and fellow legal engineers across time zones creates a dynamic, fast-paced atmosphere where learning is constant. For legal professionals curious about where law and technology intersect, it’s a role worth exploring.

We’re hiring

If you’re interested in joining a team building the future of legal technology, we’d love to hear from you. Check out our careers page to see open roles.