Innovation Counsel

Innovation Counsel Cooley is seeking an Innovation Counsel to join our Practice Innovation team.

Position summary:

Working under the guidance of the Lead Innovation Counsel, the Innovation Counsel will advance Cooley’s efforts to deliver practice-specific initiatives designed to maximize the value of our innovation technologies and practices. This role will be performed in collaboration with practice group leadership, resource attorneys, practice support lawyers, the legal education and professional development teams, and others to drive best practices for leveraging legal technology such that Cooley’s approach to these technologies is a key differentiator among law firms.

This role will introduce new tools and processes developed and implemented by the innovation department, leveraging the Innovation Counsel’s legal understanding and experience. The Innovation Counsel will also support practice group-specific resource initiatives. Specific duties and responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

Responsibilities:

Support and provide attorney-level input on targeted legal technology adoption initiatives impacting the firm’s practice groups

Design and prepare meaningful playbooks to help practice groups understand and implement best practices around the use of innovation technologies and processes Organize presentations, status reports, and executive briefings

Collaborate closely with leadership in the innovation, firm operations, technology and practice groups in the request/initiative prioritization process, both in sharing insight gleaned from work with the practice groups and in evangelizing the existence and value of the prioritization process to the practice groups

Collaborative closely with other innovation teams to develop objectives, success metrics, and timelines related to legal technology adoption initiatives in the practice groups

Collaborate closely with practice management teams, legal project management and pricing teams to understand and analyze current practice group operational workflows, identify areas for improvement, and develop strategies to increase effectiveness and efficiency leveraging legal technologies

Work with other innovation teams to drive legal technology pilots, deployments, proofs of concept, experiments, and continuous improvements within the firm’s practice groups

Work closely with the change management team to help them develop effective communication campaigns for practice groups and develop meaningful change measurement processes

Develop and maintain practice group-specific resources, and work with Practice Engineering and other firm departments to automate and/or scale such efforts

Additional responsibilities based on evolving needs of the firm

Skills and experience:

Required:

After orientation at Cooley LLP, exhibit proficiency in the Microsoft Office suite, iManage and other firm applications

Ability to work extended and/or weekend hours, as required

Ability to travel, as required4+ years direct applicable experience (e.g., legal practice experience, hands-on experience with legal technology use and adoption efforts)
Active member in good standing or registered in-house counsel of the bar(s) in all jurisdictions from which you regularly work, as well as the jurisdiction in which your assigned office is located, if applicable

Juris Doctor(ate) or non-US equivalent

Experience in supporting and driving cross-functional projects involving legal technology teams, knowledge management teams, technology teams and practice group leadership

Understanding of large law firm financial and work allocation processes

Preferred:

Knowledge and experience with distributed systems and organizations

Experience with core large law technologies such as iManage or…