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 required
• 4+ 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 NetDocs, Elite 3E, Intapp products, Litera products, Thomson Reuters and Lexis products
• Experience with generative AI solutions used in legal practice
• Strong effective presentation experience and skills to varied audiences
• Experience with alternative legal service/managed service providers and models. (example: document review teams)
• Experience with technology usage data and metrics
• Ability to leverage data for insights and storytelling

Competencies:

• Excellent written and oral communication
• Ability to perform effective analysis to determine the root cause of legal service delivery problems and suggest solutions for the best outcomes for the firm 
• Ability to process complex information with high levels of accuracy
• Ability to build, develop and grow business relationships in support of large-scale initiatives and programs
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to translate technical concepts to legal professionals and senior executives
• Ability to influence and collaborate with multiple stakeholders across various departments (legal, IS, etc.)
• Ability to work effectively in a highly matrixed team environment
• Ability to focus on detail without losing sight of bigger picture

Cooley offers a competitive compensation and excellent benefits package and is committed to fair and equitable employment practices.

EOE.

The expected annual pay range for this position with a full-time schedule is $225,000 - $285,000. Please note that final offer amount will be dependent on geographic location, applicable experience and skillset of the candidate.

We offer a full range of elective benefits including medical, health savings account (with applicable medical plan), dental, vision, health and/or dependent care flexible spending accounts, pre-tax commuter benefits, life insurance, AD&D, long-term care coverage, backup care for children and/or adults and other parental support benefits. In addition to elective benefit options, benefited employees receive firm-paid life insurance, AD&D, LTD, short term medical benefits as well as four weeks of vacation, two weeks of sick and 10 paid holidays each year. We provide generous parental leave and fertility benefits. New employees will attend a detailed benefit orientation to learn more about our many benefits and resources.