Enterprise Taxonomy Analyst

Enterprise Taxonomy Analyst

Cooley is seeking an Enterprise Taxonomy Analyst to join the Data Management team within the Innovation Department.

Position summary: As a leading technology law firm, Cooley is determined to become a leader in the digital practice of law. The Enterprise Taxonomy Analyst will serve a critical function in this team and is responsible for working with business stakeholders, Innovation leads and operational business professionals to translate the data needs of the business to the data science team and lead the development and maintenance of taxonomies, classification systems and data mapping solutions in the firm’s data lake environment.

Specific duties and responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Design, implement, and manage legal taxonomies and metadata models in Unity Catalog for documents, matters, clients, and knowledge assets
• Work with business owners to design and implement robust solutions to fundamental data classification problems
• Develop classification schemes and controlled vocabularies aligned with legal practice areas, jurisdictions, regulatory requirements, and firm‑specific needs
• Partner with Technology and Data teams to integrate firmwide taxonomies into relevant enterprise and proprietary applications
• Maintain and govern taxonomies and metadata in accordance with firm‑wide information governance and compliance standards
• Lead on mapping external business and legal data sources to firmwide taxonomies
• Lead in educating the wider Innovation department as to the importance and business value of enterprise taxonomy and information architecture efforts
• Collaborate with the relevant Innovation, Technology, and other administrative and legal practice teams to ensure enterprise taxonomy and information architecture decisions and direction are in line with and serve business needs
• Assist in advancing the mission and vision for the Data Governance team, formulating processes and developing best practices related to enterprise taxonomy and information architecture
• In collaboration with the wider Data team, and working closely with the Senior Data Governance Analyst, ensure that taxonomies, classifications, business data rules, mapping tables and other artifacts of the work are published and made available for reference and consumption by business stakeholders and application support and development teams
• Lead the evaluation and selection of taxonomy and aligned information architecture, data management systems and tools and keep up to date in developments and best practices in the taxonomy and information architecture fields
• Conduct audits and quality assurance of classification and tagging across systems
• Support AI and machine learning initiatives through curated and structured datasets
• In collaboration with the Business Data and Competitive Intelligence teams, identify external business and legal data resources with the potential to enhance data‑driven service output and insights to attorneys
• Participate in projects, where needed as a business data / taxonomy / information architecture subject matter expert
• All other duties as assigned or required

• After orientation at Cooley LLP, exhibit proficiency in the Microsoft Office suite, iManage, Adobe Acrobat and other firm applications
• Advanced Excel skills – Pivot Tables; VBA macros
• Ability to work extended and/or weekend hours, as required
• Ability to travel to other offices, as needed
• 4+ years direct applicable experience (e.g., legal taxonomy and information architecture design). Senior candidates must have 5+ years’ experience and operating at an elevated level in terms of scope of responsibility, judgement and autonomy.
• Experience designing and maintaining taxonomies and ontologies in enterprise systems
• Experience in, or knowledge of, master data management, metadata management, data quality and data lineage tooling and principles
• Experience working in a client‑facing environment acting as a trusted adviser to client stakeholders

• Bachelor’s Degree
• Experience developing and maintaining taxonomies in a data lake environment, such as Databricks or…