User Researcher (First Hire)

About the Company

Adalat AI is building an end-to-end justice tech stack that automates manual and clerical pain points in courtrooms, giving judges back time to focus on what matters most: decision-making and delivering justice. Our solutions, from AI-powered transcription in Indian languages to case-flow management and document navigation, are now deployed across 9 states, covering nearly 20% of India's judiciary.

Backed by leading technology companies and funders, and incubated at MIT and Oxford, Adalat AI is working to eliminate judicial delays and expand access to timely justice. Founded by a team with backgrounds in law, technology, and economics from Harvard, Oxford, MIT, and IIIT Hyderabad, we are scaling rapidly across India and the Global South. We're also the first nonprofit YC has backed in nearly five years, and the first Indian-founded nonprofits in its history.

Role Overview

As our first User Researcher, you will be the voice of one of India's most complex and underserved user bases: judges, court staff, and legal professionals navigating a system built on decades of legacy process. Understanding them, and earning their trust, requires patience, curiosity, and a genuine interest in how institutions work at the ground level.

Adalat AI has lawyer-led state teams on the ground in our partner states to support user research. They know the courts, the people, and the terrain. They will support your access and logistics so you can focus on research, not navigation.

You'll sit within the design team and have direct influence over product direction. Your research will shape what gets built, what gets dropped, and what gets prioritised next.

Key Responsibilities

Field Research and User Engagement

Travel pan-India (about 50% of your time) to conduct contextual observation, interviews, and usability sessions with judges, clerks, and stenographers
Work alongside Adalat AI's lawyer state leads in partner states who will facilitate access, provide legal and cultural context, and help you build rapport with judicial stakeholders faster
Surface pain points, workarounds, and latent needs that don't show up in feedback forms, support tickets or mixpanel data

Research Design and Execution

Plan and run end-to-end studies: screeners, discussion guides, facilitation, synthesis
Choose the right method for the constraint. Contextual inquiry and shadowing in-field v/s remote interviews from base
Build and own Adalat AI's research ops practice
Build our quantitative research pipeline from the ground up, establishing how we survey users, instrument the product and close loop on adoption and task success alongside our existing qualitative sources
Triangulate qualitative and quantitative evidence so recommendations carry both depth and scale

Insight to Impact

Translate research into clear, actionable briefs that directly inform feature prioritisation, product direction, and design decisions
Partner with designers to ensure UX decisions are grounded in real courtroom context
Collaborate with the legal partnerships and operations team to embed research touchpoints within deployment cycles

Cross-functional Influence

Represent the user in design reviews and product planning as a decision-making voice, not just a reporting function
Help product and engineering internalise nuanced user contexts: varying digital literacy, multilingual usage, and the weight of institutional process
Champion a culture of continuous discovery across the team

Qualifications

5 to 7 years of experience in user research
Proven ability to independently design and run qualitative research studies
Strong primary field research instincts, comfortable in unfamiliar environments with non-tech-savvy users
Ability to synthesise ambiguous, messy data into clear product recommendations
Willingness and genuine enthusiasm to travel up to 50% across India
Experience building a research practice in an early-stage or 0-to-1 environment

Nice to have:

Exposure to legal, government, or civic-tech contexts
Proficiency in additional Indian languages, a real advantage given the diversity of our user base
Familiarity with research tools like Mixpanel, Maze, or equivalent

What You Will Achieve in a Year

Build Adalat AI's user research practice from zero: methods, templates, and a living insight repository
Establish sustained access and trust with judicial users across multiple states
Deliver research that directly shapes the roadmap for our flagship products
Help design tools that are actually used, and trusted, inside India's courtrooms

Our Interview Process

We keep our process straightforward and transparent. Here's what to expect:

R1 — Intro Call (30 minutes)
An introduction to Adalat AI — our mission, the problem we're solving, and an initial conversation around role fit.

R2 — Deep-Dive (45 minutes)
A discussion on your past experience, process, and how your background connects to the work we're doing.

R3 — Portfolio Review (60 minutes)
A walkthrough of your portfolio with a cross-functional panel — walk us through your work, decisions, and design thinking.

R4 — Culture Fit — Founder Chat (30 minutes)
A conversation with one or more of our founders to assess mutual fit and shared values.

R5 — Offer
If it's a great match on both sides, we'll move forward with an offer.

Note: The process may vary depending on seniority and role. For lead roles, a whiteboarding challenge may be added after the portfolio review.