- Job Type: Officer of Administration
- Bargaining Unit:
- Regular/Temporary: Temporary
- End Date if Temporary: 1 year from start date
- Hours Per Week: 35
- Standard Work Schedule:
- Building:
- Salary Range: $90,000 - $110,000
The salary of the finalist selected for this role will be set based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to departmental budgets, qualifications, experience, education, licenses, specialty, and training. The above hiring range represents the University's good faith and reasonable estimate of the range of possible compensation at the time of posting.
Position Summary
The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law seeks a Climate Litigation Database Manager to play a central role in the development and maintenance of the world’s leading open-access climate litigation resource, the Sabin Center’s Climate Litigation Database. The role sits at the intersection of legal research and data management and involves working with AI-powered tools to improve database functionality, content quality, and analytical capacity.
This is a one-year position, with the possibility of renewal contingent on funding.
You can learn more about the Sabin Center here. More information about the Center’s climate litigation work is available here.
Responsibilities
The incumbent will work with the Center’s Faculty Director, Executive Director, and current Climate Litigation program staff, as well as with external partners, on the development and continuous improvement of the Climate Litigation Database, including its new AI-powered platform. In particular, the incumbent will:
- Contribute to the design, development, expansion, and maintenance of the Climate Litigation Database, including its AI-powered features
- Work with developers and external partners to conceptualize and implement features in the Climate Litigation Database that respond to legal and research needs
- Work with other Climate Litigation staff to add new content to the database, including applying and refining taxonomies, methodologies, and analytical frameworks
- Design and implement AI-assisted intake workflows, including tools to monitor news feeds and legal sources for new climate cases
- Develop and maintain standardized case summary templates to ensure consistent, complete, and methodologically sound entries across jurisdictions
- Implement and oversee AI-assisted tagging and categorization systems for case classification with human review workflows to ensure accuracy
- Develop and maintain quality control protocols, including automated flagging of incomplete records, inconsistent data, and cases requiring status updates
- Support analytics functions, including trend analysis across years and jurisdictions, time-to-resolution tracking, and cross-filtering by case attributes
- Develop systems to streamline maintenance and improve automation and scalability of the platform
- Oversee data quality and content standardization across jurisdictions
- Identify opportunities to improve usability of the platform for researchers, legal practitioners, and the public
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree or master’s degree in public policy, environmental studies, computer science, information technology, or a related field
- 3-5 years of relevant professional experience in database development or management, data quality workflows, legal policy or research, or related areas, such as project management; development or maintenance of websites, apps, or databases; and collaboration with data scientists and website engineers/designers
Preferred Qualifications
- Familiarity with AI/ML tools, including classification, tagging, or automated workflow tools, particularly in a legal, research, or policy context
- Interest in and/or exposure to law, litigation, climate change law and policy
- Demonstrated interest and experience in AI, information systems, climate change, environmental law/policy, and/or sustainability
- Strong organizational and project management skills
- Excellent writing and editing skills
- Must be able to work with diverse constituencies and support an inclusive work environment.
Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran
Columbia University is committed to the hiring of qualified local residents.
