Careers in Legal Data Intelligence: A New Wave of Roles & Opportunities

As legal teams grapple with rising data volumes, a new kind of professional is stepping into the spotlight: the Legal Data Intelligence (LDI) practitioner. Blending technical savvy with legal and business acumen, these professionals help their organizations successfully apply the LDI model and transform Sensitive, Useful, and Necessary (SUN) data into answers, insights, and advice.

Within corporate legal departments, Legal Data Intelligence practitioners will enable general counsel to run their departments like a business—with a predictable cost structure and clear processes in place.

Within law firms, Legal Data Intelligence practitioners will enable lawyers to stay focused on their subject matter expertise without being impeded by legal data challenges.

Within legal service providers, Legal Data Intelligence practitioners will bring new offerings to their clients that enable them to better manage data to improve efficiency, save resources, and mitigate risk.

Since its launch, Legal Data Intelligence has created fertile ground for the growth of entirely new roles—and entirely new career paths— within the legal industry.

Today, we’re highlighting two teams that have officially added Legal Data Intelligence practitioners to their staff.

Walgreens Hires the World’s First LDI Analyst

LDI founding member Adam Rouse, Senior Counsel and Director of eDiscovery Operations at Walgreens, recently hired the industry’s first Legal Data Intelligence Analyst. The new hire will help Rouse’s team drive the identification, preservation, collection, analysis, processing, and production of SUN data in response to legal requests and business initiatives.

“I felt it was important to hire an LDI analyst because my department does so much more than ediscovery. The LDI Analyst’s job description captures much more accurately the work we perform across all areas of legal and compliance,” Rouse said.

In keeping with LDI’s characteristically holistic and practice-agnostic posture, the LDI analyst will work on complex data challenges across several practice areas, such as litigation, investigations, privacy, data protection, information governance, and legal operations.

Candidates were expected to possess working knowledge not only of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM), and data preservation, collection, processing, review, and analysis strategies, but also the Legal Data Intelligence model. Fundamentally, Rouse was seeking a proactive analyst with an aptitude for applying analytics to legal data.

At a time when the legal industry is scrambling to catch up with AI’s rapidly evolving capabilities and the data explosion is only intensifying further, Rouse is bullish on career opportunities for LDI practitioners. In fact, he is looking to hire a second LDI Analyst to join his team.

We sat down with Rouse who was kind enough to share his experience in hiring for the role:

What was the response to the job posting? How many job applications (approximately) did you receive?

Adam Rouse: Because I already had an internal candidate that I wanted to promote to this position, we didn’t undergo a full recruitment process, but I do know that there were several internal applications while the job posting was available to internal folks.

Were candidates already familiar with the Legal Data Intelligence model? What was the extent of their knowledge?

The candidate I hired was familiar with the model. I attribute this to her flexing to assist with needs in my department before she was officially promoted.

This was the industry’s first LDI Analyst job posting. What was it about the position that attracted the candidates interviewing for the role?

Both the person I hired as well as the other internal candidates liked the cross functionality and broad range of skills/responsibilities the LDI position offered. Additionally, they liked the fact that I did my best to ensure that the role captured the actual job responsibilities. Additionally, the LDI role offers a great deal of flexibility and growth, allowing for the learning of critical skills and gaining valuable experience that can be leveraged into a powerful career path.

Were you looking for someone with knowledge or experience in working with AI? Were there any skills (prompt engineering?) that you were looking for?

I was looking for someone who was strong with emerging technology as well as someone who was curious about all of the changes in legal technology. These qualities will help any LDI Analyst excel in their position.

(Editor’s Note: Rouse recently published a blog post describing the essential qualities of a Legal Data Intelligence practitioner—a deeper dive into what makes LDI professionals a strategic asset for legal teams.)

Meet the Legal Industry’s First Chief Legal Data Intelligence Officer

“Legal Data Intelligence encapsulates what I’ve been doing in my career for the past 20 years at least," said Kelly Friedman, a founding member of Legal Data Intelligence, on a recent podcast episode.

When she was interviewing with Heuristica last year, Friedman had a vision for an entirely new type of role: Chief Legal Data Intelligence Officer. She pitched it to Heuristica CEO Crystal O’Donnell, and O’Donnell was thrilled.

“We really are a team of lawyers who approach data and the clients’ problems holistically,” O’Donnell explained in a recent interview.

Watch the full video to hear more from O’Donnell and Friedman on the Chief Legal Data Intelligence Officer role and why they believe LDI is so crucial to the practice of law.

Just the Beginning

As data continues to reshape the legal landscape, we’ll see more roles, more specializations, and more opportunities for professionals who can bridge the gaps between law, technology, data, and strategy.

Whether you're a seasoned practitioner or just starting out, now is the time to ask yourself: What role will I play in the era of Legal Data Intelligence?