Real Estate Finance Technologist (Legal Document Automation Specialist)

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP is one of the world’s leading international law firms. The Firm was established in 1884 and has more than 1,000 lawyers. Headquartered in New York with offices in Beijing, Brussels, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, São Paulo, Tokyo and Washington, D.C., the Firm provides coordinated legal advice and transactional capability to clients around the globe.

This is an exciting opportunity to work as a Technologist specialising in Legal document automation in the London Real Estate Finance (REF) practice at STB assisting in the delivery of crucial document automation to support legal practice. You will be part of a small REF technology team working with the Partners and the Technology Manager to develop additional technology solutions as needs arise. This role requires a meticulous approach to translating detailed legal requirements into clear logical code, using Avvoka (currently our software tool). You’ll play a key role in ensuring documents not only populate with accurate data but also adhere to consistent formatting and visual styles.

• Organise the preparation, cleaning and styling of legal documents for automation.
• Analyse and translate requirements into clear, logical frameworks for automated templates.
• Design logic to handle the insertion of different outputs into documents based on pre-defined scenarios.
• Use Avvoka (or other interface) to program templates for different REF legal document outputs.
• Develop and maintain consistent nomenclature for functions and other code attributes and conditions.
• Run debugging, analysing a number of legal permutations outputs against requirements.
• Test at unit, pack and system level.
• Develop, maintain and apply comprehensive system-wide libraries to standardise and optimise the efficiency of the automation system.
• Implement efficient and reusable code for legal document automation, prioritising code clarity, maintainability.
• Assist in the development of looped functions to automate repetitive drafting tasks within templates.
• Maintain a strong understanding of the codebase to support efficient updates and future development, ensuring ongoing adherence to automation and document standards.
• Prepare and store template comparisons to document changes and help version control.
• Collaborate with the secretarial team and others to update materials and ensure consistency with automated templates, focussing on both data accuracy and adherence to visual formatting requirements.
• Regularly attend automation and legal technology training workshops to stay up-to-date on best practice.
• Log software bugs to promote improvements.
• Contribute to reports to Partners on the status of projects.
• Deputise for and assist the Technology Manager in supplying document automation and wider technology expertise to the team.
• Provide support, troubleshooting and training to attorneys.
• Work with third party legal technology consultants, as required.

• Manage workload within the context of project plans working to deadlines and reporting on progress.
• Work collaboratively with members of the REF team and with teams and individuals throughout the firm.
• Assist the Technology Manager in developing good relationships with legal technology platform vendors and internal stakeholders.
• Assist the Technology Manager with the delivery of technology, innovation and automation product upgrades and technical workstreams.

• Four years’ experience of legal documents production is highly desirable.
• Several years’ experience of legal document automation itself, is highly desirable.
• Familiarity with computational thinking (understanding concepts of conditionality etc.) is highly desirable.
• Proficient in MS Office (including Excel, Access & PowerPoint).
• Expertise in Microsoft Word (e.g. ICDL Level 3 or equivalent).
• Experience of using iManage, Share Point, HighQ and other legal technologies is desirable.
• Strong time management and organisational skills.
• Strongly detail oriented in legal writing and legal document formatting.
• Has a ‘can-do’ attitude to problem solving.
• Able to take a facilitative approach to helping others in the context of this post.

Simpson Thacher is committed to being a Firm where everyone can reach their full potential, irrespective of background, identity or circumstance. We recognise that in order to be successful we need to attract, retain and develop diverse talent at all levels.