Applied AI Manager (Regulatory)

Summary:

Covington’s Applied AI function exists to leverage advanced technology to positively impact the organization, the business, and client service delivery. The Applied AI team designs, builds, and deploys AI-enabled workflows, automation, and matter-support tools across the firm’s legal practice areas. The Regulatory Applied AI Manager will report to the Director of Applied AI and serve as the dedicated Applied AI lead for the firm’s Regulatory practices across its industry sectors, which may include financial services, healthcare and life sciences, technology and communications, energy and environmental, and other regulated industries. The Regulatory Applied AI Manager will partner with Regulatory attorneys, the Regulatory Knowledge Management (KM) and Practice Technology Manager, and the broader Applied AI team to identify, build, and scale AI-enabled tools that improve regulatory advisory speed and quality, attorney leverage, and client service delivery.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and maintain AI-enabled workflows and automation for regulatory analysis, filings, monitoring, and advisory work, including regulatory horizon scanning, regulatory research, advisory memo drafting support, agency filing and submission workflows, and compliance monitoring.
• Partner with Regulatory attorneys and practice leadership to identify, prioritize, and sequence the highest-impact AI use cases for Regulatory workstreams.
• Translate Regulatory practice knowledge – interpretive guidance, advisory frameworks, filing patterns, and agency-specific conventions – into reusable prompt patterns, agent workflows, and AI tooling.
• Partner with the Regulatory KM and Practice Technology Manager to ensure AI tools are grounded in well-curated regulatory trackers, interpretive guidance repositories, advisory memos, and filing templates.
• Educate and enable Regulatory attorneys on the safe, effective, and confident use of AI tools through demos, training sessions, office hours, and ongoing support, partnering with practice group leadership and the Regulatory KM and Practice Technology Manager to drive adoption.
• Evaluate, configure, and implement third-party AI tools and platforms relevant to regulatory practice, advising on build-versus-buy decisions and integrating selected tools into regulatory advisory workflows.
• Define and apply quality controls, evaluation criteria, and review checkpoints to ensure AI-enabled work product is accurate, defensible, and consistent with Covington standards.
• Track adoption, performance, and value metrics for Regulatory AI tools, surfacing actionable insights to the Director of Applied AI and Regulatory practice leadership.
• Coordinate with the broader Applied AI team to share patterns, evaluations, and reusable components across practices wherever applicable.
• Stay actively informed of developments in legal AI for regulatory work and of regulatory developments themselves where they affect AI use, and proactively bring forward new opportunities, pilots, and pattern improvements.
• Operate with appropriate attention to data handling, privilege protection, confidentiality, and AI governance in all tool design and deployment.
• Perform other duties as assigned by Firm management.
• Uphold high standards of confidentiality, discretion, and integrity, particularly with respect to all sensitive and/or confidential firm and client information to which this position will have access.

Qualifications:

• Minimum of 5 years of transferable professional experience, with a meaningful portion in applied AI, machine learning, or legal technology delivery within a law firm, professional services organization, or comparable environment.
• Track record of designing, building, and shipping AI-enabled tools or workflows into production with measurable adoption and impact; experience with LLM-based applications, retrieval-augmented generation, evaluation methods, and modern AI tooling preferred.
• Working understanding of regulatory advisory workflows (e.g., regulatory research, horizon scanning, advisory memos, agency filings, compliance support) sufficient to translate attorney requirements into AI solutions; familiarity with regulatory monitoring tools and platforms preferred.
• Demonstrated initiative and bias for action, with the willingness to own outcomes through to delivery and the judgment to know when to ship, when to iterate, and when to escalate.
• Genuine intellectual curiosity, with a habit of staying ahead of developments in AI and a track record of bringing fresh ideas and approaches forward.
• Solution- and objective-oriented mindset, with the discipline to anchor every project to a clear business or client-service outcome and the persistence to drive it through to delivery.
• Strong listener: genuinely curious about how attorneys work and what clients need, with the ability to surface root problems before proposing solutions and the patience to push past the first ask to understand the underlying objective.
• Comfortable as a teacher: able to demonstrate, train, and bring along attorneys and business professionals at all levels of technical fluency, with patience for the realities of change management in a partnership.
• Demonstrated ability to build trusted relationships across practices and functions – with attorneys, business professionals, technology partners, and operations teams – and to operate as a credible cross-practice and cross-functional connector.
• Strong organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple concurrent priorities, drive projects through to completion, and lead effectively and with professionalism in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to communicate complex AI concepts in terms that resonate with attorneys and business professionals.
• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree in a relevant technical, legal, or business discipline preferred.
• Position requires access to equipment, software, or technology that is subject to U.S. export controls. To be granted access pursuant to US Export Control laws, candidate must be either (a) a United States citizen or national; (b) a person lawfully admitted for permanent residence of the United States (i.e., “Green Card” holder); or (c) an INS-approved refugee or asylum holder who has applied for naturalization within six months of the date the individual first became eligible; and if not yet naturalized, is still actively pursuing naturalization if 2 years have passed since the date of application to be granted access pursuant to US Export Control laws. Candidates will be required to submit appropriate documentation to determine whether access can be granted before proceeding further through the application process.

Status: Exempt

Workplace Type: Hybrid as needed (must be local to DC office)

Salary range is $153,000 – $218,000 depending on candidate location and experience.

Candidates hired for staff positions with a minimum work schedule of 30 hours per week are eligible for a comprehensive benefits package, including healthcare insurance. Learn more about benefits at Covington.

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Covington & Burling LLP is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in any aspect of employment, including hiring, salary, promotion, discipline, termination, and benefits, on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, age, marital status, sexual orientation, family responsibility, disability (including physical handicap), or any other improper criterion.