Senior Manager – Innovation and AI

Practice Group / Department:

Norton Rose Fulbright is a global law firm with more than 3,000 lawyers advising clients across locations in the United States, Europe, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Australia, Africa and the Middle East. We provide the world's preeminent corporations and financial institutions with a full business law service.

With over 50 offices and 7,000 employees worldwide, our culture is the thread that connects us, as well as our values of unity, quality and integrity. Our strategy and culture are connected – defined by shared ambition, global collaboration and a one-team mindset. We believe pioneering work happens when people are empowered to think beyond boundaries, explore new opportunities and grow through diverse experiences. Alongside the right skills and experience, we look for people who are innovative, commercially minded, and motivated by the impact of the work they do – ready to share in our ambition and help shape what comes next.

Because while individuals can do well, together we achieve something extraordinary.

The Role

The Senior Manager – Innovation and AI will lead the firm’s internally facing innovation technology strategy and shape the future direction of legal technology for the IDT team. This is a senior, strategically focused and technically fluent role that builds the technology roadmap, translates emerging technology into practical outcomes, and strengthens the firm’s position as a leader in the use of advanced technology, including generative AI and agentic AI approaches.

The role combines strategic horizon scanning, thought leadership, cross functional collaboration, and hands on oversight of solution design. It includes line management and responsibility for guiding small development teams or cross functional project groups as required.

Experience working in professional services is essential, and experience in the legal sector is strongly preferred.

Key Responsibilities

Advisory

• Advise senior stakeholders on innovation technology strategy, governance, and safe adoption of emerging technology.
• Shape, prepare, and present business cases for investment in future technology aligned to practice needs, client expectations, and the firm’s long term digital direction.
• Represent the IDT team in high level steering groups, working groups, and senior leadership forums.

Innovation Strategy and Horizon Scanning

• Lead structured horizon scanning across AI, automation, workflow design, data platforms, and emerging categories such as agentic AI, orchestration frameworks and intelligent productivity tools.
• Assess the implications of developments in the technology landscape for a global law firm, including risks, opportunities, and competitive positioning.
• Develop and maintain the innovation technology innovation roadmap, ensuring clear priorities, dependencies, metrics and measurable outcomes.
• Translate emerging technology into practical, actionable future workflows that support lawyers and enhance service delivery.

Research and Development

• Guide the research, evaluation and selection of new and emerging tools, platforms and vendors.
• Oversee or support the creation of proofs of concept, prototypes and minimum viable products, working with internal developers, vendors or external partners.
• Provide technical fluency to evaluate solution architecture, integration needs, data considerations and security implications.
• Maintain strong awareness of industry developments, academic research and market analysis to ensure the firm’s innovation strategy remains current and credible.

Internal and Market Collaboration

• Work closely with IT, Knowledge, Digital Solutions, Cyber Security, Risk and other business services teams to ensure alignment between innovation strategy and wider firmwide technology plans.
• Maintain relationships with the external ecosystem, including start ups, scale ups, academics and peer organisations, to benchmark trends and identify partnership opportunities.
• Support the creation of thought leadership materials including horizon scanning reports, internal updates and presentations.
• Engage with paralegals, LPM and IDT teams to coordinate innovation delivery activity across the broader innovation function.

Technology Implementation and Innovation Delivery

• Lead structured evaluations of potential new tools and ensure evidence based recommendations.
• Oversee testing, configuration, onboarding and roll out of new capabilities from existing suppliers.
• Guide the integration of emerging AI and automation features into the firm’s existing technology stack.
• Provide oversight of performance analysis, usage reporting and value tracking.
• Support transition of tools to business as usual teams where appropriate.

Adoption and Education

• Design and deliver education programmes, knowledge sharing and communities of practice to help lawyers and business services colleagues understand emerging technologies.
• Promote safe, responsible and effective adoption of AI and new tools across the firm.
• Contribute to change management approaches that encourage confidence, safe experimentation and continuous improvement.
• Provide light client facing support as required, including occasional participation in innovation briefings or capability demonstrations.

Key Skills and Experience

Essential

• Minimum 7 years of experience in innovation, emerging technology, digital transformation or legal tech innovation roles.
• Experience working in a professional services environment.
• Strong understanding of the legal sector or demonstrable ability to adapt to it quickly.
• Proven ability to lead technology strategy, roadmap development and structured horizon scanning.
• Strong technical fluency, able to understand architecture, evaluate technical approaches and guide developers or vendor teams.
• Experience delivering prototypes, proofs of concept or minimum viable products.
• Experience leading small teams and managing cross functional project groups.
• Excellent communication skills, able to translate complex technology into clear and practical insights for senior stakeholders.

Desirable

• Experience with agentic AI concepts, orchestration frameworks or AI automation tools.
• Familiarity with workflow design, data engineering concepts or integration patterns.
• Prior experience building or supervising the development of applied legal tech solutions.

#LI-JC1 #LI-Hybrid

To attract the best people, we strive to create a diverse and inclusive environment where everyone can bring their whole selves to work, have a sense of belonging, and realize their full career potential. 
Our new enabled work model allows our people to have more flexibility in the way they choose to work from both the office and a remote location, while continuing to deliver the highest standards of service. We offer a range of family friendly and inclusive employment policies and provide access to programmes and services aimed at nurturing our people’s health and overall wellbeing. Find more about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion here.

We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing teams. We strive to create an inclusive and accessible recruitment process for all candidates. If you require any tailored adjustments or accommodations, please let us know here.