Senior Counsel — Legal Domain Expert

$85–120/hrrate as listed

A full-time W-2 role (via Cincinnatus LLC, discovered through Mercor) writing instruction specs, golden solutions, and benchmarks that teach a frontier AI model how real legal work is reasoned through. This listing is scoped to counsel and senior associate level — roughly 8 to 15 years post-qualification — and requires living in the Bay Area with on-site days at the client's office.

Summary, eligibility guidance and screening preparation are prepared by Sidequest from the platform's posting. Check the source listing before applying.

What the work involves

You sit alongside a leading AI lab's research and program management teams, and your practice judgment is the deliverable. Day to day that means three overlapping streams: QA on legal knowledge-work tasks and model outputs, where you flag thin reasoning, missing steps, and answers that read fluently but would not survive a partner's or a regulator's review; authoring instruction specs and golden solutions that define what "correct" looks like on a given task; and designing harder evaluation sets and benchmarks that show whether the model is actually improving rather than just sounding better. A fourth stream is calibration — working with researchers and experts in adjacent domains to turn tacit legal judgment into explicit, teachable criteria that a non-lawyer annotator could apply consistently.

The tasks are built to mirror how the work is really done: not bar-exam trivia, but the reasoning behind a diligence memo, a discovery dispute, a compliance analysis, a claim construction, a withholding question. Written precision matters more than volume — feedback that says why an output fails and what the correct chain of reasoning was is the unit of value here.

What the screen looks for

Verifiable seniority. JD from an accredited school, admission to at least one U.S. state bar in good standing, and 8–15 years of substantive post-qualification practice at a firm, in-house department, regulatory body, or court. Clerkships and internships alone do not count. If you are earlier in your career, or already at partner or GC level, apply to the matching seniority listing instead — the platform runs separate bands so rate tracks experience.
Genuine specialization. Expect follow-ups that go a layer deeper than your résumé in one named practice area — corporate/transactional, litigation, regulatory and compliance, IP, employment and labor, or tax. Generalist answers tend not to survive the second question.
Evaluation judgment. Can you tell a well-reasoned answer from a confident, plausible-sounding wrong one, and can you write down the distinction as a rule someone else could apply?
Hands-on LLM use in your actual professional work, described specifically.

Logistics, stated plainly

This is not remote. It is a hybrid role based in the Bay Area, California, with required on-site days at the client's team multiple days a week. You must already live in the Bay Area or be willing to relocate at your own cost — no relocation assistance. The commitment is 40 hours per week for an initial six-month engagement, as a W-2 employee of Cincinnatus LLC, which serves as employer of record and administers payroll and benefits; Cincinnatus is a separate legal entity from Mercor. You'll work inside the client's own tools on client-issued accounts and equipment. The $85–120/hr band reflects rates observed on this listing and is not a guarantee — placement and rate depend on seniority, practice area, and the client's needs.

What they look for

JD from an accredited U.S. law school and admission to at least one U.S. state bar in good standing
8–15 years post-qualification practice at counsel, senior associate, senior in-house, or AGC level
Deep specialization in a substantive practice area (corporate/transactional, litigation, regulatory, IP, employment, or tax)
Hands-on professional use of large language models and the judgment to catch plausible-sounding errors
Precise written communication — instruction specs, golden solutions, and structured reviewer feedback
Bay Area residency (or willingness to relocate unassisted) with availability for 40 hrs/week on-site-hybrid for 6 months

Before you apply

Would you pass this screen?

Drawn from what this listing actually requires. Answered in your browser — nothing is sent to us, and we do not store your answers.

Do you hold a Juris Doctor (JD) degree from an ABA-accredited law school?
Juris Doctor (JD) from accredited law school · required
Are you currently admitted to at least one U.S. state bar in good standing, with no disciplinary actions or restrictions on your license?
U.S. state bar admission in good standing · required
Do you have 8 to 15 years of substantive post-qualification legal practice at a reputable institution—a law firm, corporate legal department, regulatory body, or court—excluding internships and clerkships?
8–15 years post-qualification legal practice · required
Have you reached or do you currently hold counsel, senior associate, senior in-house counsel, or Assistant General Counsel level, with real ownership of legal matters?
Counsel or senior associate level · required
Have you used large language models (ChatGPT, Claude, or other LLMs) hands-on in your professional legal work, with direct experience evaluating their output?
Hands-on LLM experience in professional legal work · preferred
Do you currently live in the Bay Area, California, and can you commit to working on-site with the client team multiple days per week as required by a hybrid arrangement?
Bay Area residency and on-site availability · required

0 of 6 answered

Included with this listing

Interview prep — 13 questions

Matched to what this platform's screening actually measures. Answer each out loud in 60–90 seconds: claim → concrete example → implication.

What it tests: Whether you have genuine counsel-level responsibility and can articulate the reasoning behind legal decisions, not just execution of another lawyer's strategy.
A strong answer: Name a matter of meaningful complexity where you made material decisions (advised on risk, chose a strategy, steered negotiations, drafted a critical document), explain the legal issue clearly, and describe your judgment and the outcome—showing you own the work, not assist with it.
Where people lose it: Describing a matter you researched or drafted under supervision, or offering only the surface narrative without the judgment calls you made. Counsel-level candidates articulate *why* they chose their path.