Solutions Architect, Strategic Applications in Belfast

Strategic Applications is a revenue‑generating legal technology team sitting within Digital Legal Delivery. The team designs, builds, and delivers technology‑enabled legal solutions directly on client matters. This is not an internal IT function – the team operates commercially, with the majority of its work charged to client matters and directly tied to live legal processes. The team's primary focus is the corporate and transactions side of the business, which the firm is actively investing in and growing. Typical work includes M&A transaction management, due diligence workflow automation, contract lifecycle management, and technology‑enabled advisory on complex corporate mandates. The team also supports a wider range of legal disciplines, including compliance, volume claims, and regulatory work. Because the team's output is chargeable and integral to live legal processes, the standard of delivery – technically and commercially – is the highest. Errors, delays, or poorly scoped solutions have direct consequences for client outcomes and fee recovery. Every member of the team is expected to understand this environment and to take personal responsibility for the quality and risk profile of their work.

Role Overview

The Solutions Architect is a client‑facing role responsible for designing and delivering the technical architecture that powers the Strategic Applications team’s client solutions. This is not a purely internal infrastructure or IT architecture role. The Architect works at the intersection of legal process, technology, and commercial delivery. Solutions designed by this role will be deployed directly on client matters, will be chargeable, and will be evaluated by clients and partners on their quality, reliability, and fitness for purpose. The role demands both technical rigor and genuine commercial and legal judgment. A defining expectation of this role is that solution design begins with the client’s need, not the firm’s technology stack. The ideal candidate will interrogate what the client is actually trying to achieve – legally and commercially – and work backwards to a solution architecture that is proportionate, robust, and deliverable within the constraints of a live legal matter. The Architect will work closely with the Senior Analyst; the two roles form the core of the team’s delivery capability. The Architect sets the technical design and integration framework; the Analyst executes within it. Effective collaboration is essential and both will maintain a shared, end‑to‑end understanding of every workflow they work on together.

Key Responsibilities

• Solution Architecture & Design: Develop high‑level and detailed solution architectures aligned to enterprise architecture standards, ensuring they are proportionate to the client mandate and deliverable within the constraints of a chargeable engagement. Define end‑to‑end solution design across document management, workflow, AI, knowledge, and data systems – starting from the legal workflow and working to the technical architecture, not the reverse. Design scalable integration patterns using APIs, webhooks, workflow orchestration, and agent/automation frameworks. Produce clear and robust architecture documentation including process maps, sequence diagrams, data flow diagrams, and technical specifications to a standard that can be reviewed by both technical and non‑technical stakeholders. Map legal workflows end to end — including handoffs between people, systems, and processes — before committing to a solution architecture, ensuring the design reflects how the work operates in practice rather than how it is assumed to operate.
• Systems Integration & Technical Delivery: Design and build API integrations between core legal technology platforms and connected systems, including DMS, HR, finance, and knowledge management systems. Integrate core legal technology platforms including: SharePoint / SharePoint Online, Microsoft Power Platform, HighQ or alternative platforms (Ansarada, Intralinks, etc.), Legatics, Kira, Contract Express, DocuSign, ShareDo (Clio Operate), iManage / NetDocuments (or equivalent DMS). Design integration solutions involving generative AI‑enabled legal assistants and LLM‑based platforms, integrating tools such as Harvey, Legora, Emma Legal and foundation models including Claude (Anthropic), with consideration of prompt engineering, retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) architecture, and LLM orchestration frameworks where relevant. Ensure all integration architectures meet the firm’s information security, data classification, access control, and information governance requirements.
• Stakeholder Engagement & Commercial Contribution: Partner with lawyers, innovation teams, PMOs, and business services teams to translate legal and business needs into robust technical solutions – acting as the primary technical voice in client‑facing and internal solution scoping discussions. Advise on the commercial implications of architectural decisions, including the cost, time, and risk profile of proposed solutions. Scope solutions in a way that is transparent and appropriate for fixed‑fee or retainer‑based client engagements. Participate in vendor assessments, RFPs, and procurement activity, evaluating new tools against client need and the firm’s enterprise standards. Contribute to business case proposals for addressing gaps in core infrastructure, working close with IT stakeholders to align solutions with wider technology programmes and firm‑wide initiatives. Conduct and manage proofs of concept and contribute to AI governance and risk assessments for emerging technologies being considered for client deployment.
• Risk & Governance: Take ownership of the risk profile of every solution architecture produced. Identify, document, and escalate architectural risks before solutions are deployed on live client matters. Ensure solutions are designed with data security, client confidentiality, and regulatory compliance (including GDPR and SRA requirements) built in from the outset – not retrofitted. Maintain awareness of the commercial and legal consequences of architectural failure in a chargeable, client‑facing environment and design accordingly.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience

• Technical Skills: Strong knowledge of integration methods: REST APIs, Graph API, JSON, XML, OAuth, SSO, and event‑driven architecture, with experience integrating external platforms using well‑structured, resilient integration patterns. Experience integrating LLM‑based and agentic platforms into enterprise solutions, including vendor‑provided MCPs and model APIs (e.g. Anthropic/Claude), with consideration of context exchange, tool invocation, and access control. Understanding of secure and scalable patterns for consuming external AI services, including rate limiting, error handling, versioning, auditability, and the management of prompts, context, and data boundaries in legal environments. Experience with workflow automation and orchestration tools (Logic Apps, Clio Operate, Power Automate, Nintex, or equivalent). Proficiency in data modelling and schema design, including JSON schema and relational data models. Experience with process mapping tools and notation (e.g. Visio, Miro, Lucidchart, or BPMN‑compliant tooling). Familiarity with Microsoft 365 cloud ecosystem and Azure integrations. Working knowledge of document management systems, with iManage strongly preferred. Familiarity with collaboration and virtual data room platforms (HighQ, Datasite, Intralinks, Ansarada) and their role in transaction workflows. Exposure to generative AI integration, including LLM‑based platforms, prompt engineering, RAG architecture, and LLM orchestration frameworks (e.g. LangChain, Azure AI Studio). Understanding of security architecture principles including data classification, access control design, and legal‑sector information governance frameworks. Ability to read and interpret legal technology platform documentation and connect technical outputs to legal process outcomes.
• Legal & Commercial Skills: Proven experience working with or supporting a law firm, ALSP, or legal operations team – preferably with direct exposure to corporate or transactions work. Demonstrated end‑to‑end understanding of at least one legal workflow type, for example: M&A due diligence (from data room set‑up through to completion), Contract lifecycle management (from instruction through to execution and obligation tracking), Transaction management workflows in a corporate context. Awareness of matter economics: the ability to scope solutions in a way that is commercially sound, and to understand the relationship between architectural decisions and fee recovery on client matters. Excellent stakeholder engagement skills and the ability to translate complex legal and business needs into coherent architectural designs.
• Personal Attributes: Approaches solution design client‑need‑first: interrogates what the client is trying to achieve legally and commercially before reaching for a technical answer. Strong communicator, able to bridge the gap between legal, technical, and business teams – equally comfortable presenting to a partner and a developer. Analytical and critical thinker with a structured, disciplined approach to problem‑solving. Proactive and intellectually curious, with a genuine interest in evaluating emerging technologies while exercising strong architectural judgment to maximise the value of existing platforms before introducing new ones. Able to manage multiple projects and priorities in a fast‑paced environment, including during live transactions where time constraints are acute. Risk‑conscious: understands the personal, commercial, and legal consequences of errors in a chargeable, client‑facing environment and takes responsibility for the risk profile of their own work. Collaborative by default: recognises that the best outcomes for clients come from working closely with the Senior Analyst and wider team, maintaining shared understanding of the workflow from end to end.

Measures of Success

• Solution quality: Architectures produced are well‑documented, peer‑reviewed, technically sound, and meet enterprise security and information governance standards.
• Integration reliability: Solutions built and deployed achieve high availability, with low error rates and strong adoption by legal teams and, where relevant, clients.
• Commercial contribution: Solutions designed by this role demonstrably generate or protect fee income, are scoped appropriately for the commercial context of the engagement, and do not result in write‑offs or over‑runs attributable to architectural decisions.
• Risk record: No material security incidents, data breaches, or client confidentiality failures arising from architectures designed by this role.
• Delivery speed: Scoped engagements are delivered within agreed timeframes, with particular attention to the time constraints of live transaction environments.
• Stakeholder confidence: Internal legal teams, partners, and clients express confidence in the technical solutions designed by this role, reflected in repeat instructions and positive feedback from supervising stakeholders.
• Collaboration effectiveness: The Senior Analyst and wider team are equipped with clear, actionable technical direction that enables them to execute effectively. The two roles operate as a coherent unit.