IT Business Relationship Manager

Steptoe, a Washington, DC-based Am Law 100 law firm, is seeking an IT Business Relationship Manager responsible for building, sustaining, and continuously deepening strategic partnerships between the Information Technology department and the firm's practice groups and business units. This position plays a hands‑on relationship management role in aligning technology capabilities with business priorities, translating stakeholder needs into actionable IT demand, and ensuring that the firm's technology investments deliver measurable value across all areas of the organization.

The IT Business Relationship Manager works directly at the intersection of technology and firm operations — engaging practice group leaders and department heads to understand business objectives, advocating for business unit priorities within IT planning and governance, communicating technology roadmaps and service changes in accessible terms, and developing project proposals (or charters) for solutions to needs. This role would be accountable for delivery of business benefits and outcomes for the internal client.

The role collaborates closely with IT leadership, project management, security, and application teams to provide well‑governed, responsive platform services that support the firm's legal and administrative functions.

• Serve as the dedicated IT point of contact for assigned business units, practice groups, and administrative departments across the firm.
• Establish and maintain trusted advisory relationships with department heads, practice group leaders, and other key stakeholders.
• Conduct regular structured meetings and informal check‑ins to understand priorities, emerging needs, and pain points.
• Advocate for business unit requirements within IT planning, budgeting, and project prioritization.
• Identify opportunities where technology can improve efficiency, reduce risk, or support revenue generation.
• Capture, document, and prioritize technology requests and project demand in alignment with IT capacity and strategic priorities.
• Translate business requirements and use cases into clear technical requirements for project and development teams.
• Partner with IT leadership to evaluate and scope requests, providing initial feasibility assessments and estimated resource needs.
• Manage and maintain a pipeline of demand items, providing transparent status updates and managing stakeholder expectations.
• Collaborate with IT leadership to incorporate business needs into the annual IT strategic plan, roadmap, and budget cycle.
• Develop proposals, business cases and project charters for approved initiatives incorporating requirements, solution delivery plans, risks and dependencies.
• Support technology initiatives by facilitating communication, change management, adoption activities, and feedback collection.
• Hold themselves accountable for delivery of business benefits and outcomes for the internal client from each initiative.
• Contribute to the development of IT service catalogs, SLAs, and KPIs that reflect business expectations and service standards.
• Communicate upcoming IT changes, upgrades, outages, and deployments to stakeholders in a timely, accessible manner.
• Develop and deliver targeted communications and presentations tailored to non‑technical audiences.
• Lead or support change management for implementations, including training coordination and user adoption strategies.
• Collaborate with project managers and vendors during implementations to ensure requirements are met and users are prepared.
• Participate in vendor evaluations, product demonstrations, and contract reviews for business unit impacting technologies.
• Coordinate with legal technology vendors and legal operations teams to support practice facing tools (e.g., DMS,…