Associate Director, Practice Innovation

The Associate Director, Practice Innovation will hold a pivotal position within ‘Reinvent’ and lead the Practice Innovation team. By design, this multi-disciplinary team has a range of skillsets and backgrounds.

The role-holder will deliver the following:

• Support for the development and operationalization of the Firm's Reinvent strategy, including supporting the Firm’s Chief Innovation Officer and being a key point of contact between the Firm’s practices and the teams helping them to innovate the practice of law: Technology, Knowledge, Global eDiscovery & Data Analytics, Legal Project Management and Alternative Legal Services
• Help to grow a culture of innovation by giving employees methodologies, tools and, most importantly, the confidence to be client centric
• Use creative problem-solving techniques to partner with our people and our clients to design and implement innovative solutions that continuously improve the client experience.

“Reinvent” is the umbrella that brings together Baker McKenzie's initiatives that are designed to change the practice of law. It captures our ongoing commitment to develop solutions to meet our clients’ challenges and most strategic goals - bringing together people, process, data and technology to deliver new value.

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic and operational support to the global Chief Innovation Officer, connecting dots between people and projects around the Firm to accelerate change and create new value for clients
• Consult on innovation efforts prioritised by the Firm’s Practice Groups
• Lead the Practice Innovation team in the delivery of expert design thinking and other innovation support to the Practices. Depending on the project, this will involve: using a variety of process improvement and human-centred design methods to design and implement solutions including ideation workshops, user interviews, journey mapping, process mapping and rapid prototyping; developing and championing key design deliverables, including user journeys, service blueprints, process flows, wireframes, business model canvasses and best practice/implementation playbooks; combining qualitative and quantitative data to tell compelling narratives and shape solutions; collaborating with team members from a variety of legal and business professional backgrounds; and tracking and reporting on project deliverables and managing governance check ins
• Frame the story of the design outcome both verbally and visually to key stakeholders across the Firm's senior leadership
• Share key research and lessons learnt from projects to enable the Firm to leverage key insights more broadly

Skills and Experience

• Experience of driving change in a law firm or consulting setting is ideal
• Experience of working in service design, product design, user experience or similar, having had some exposure to rapid prototyping methods and tools like Adobe Creative Suite; Alternatively, experience with broad process improvement and project management or direct legal practice experience with an interest in and experience of doing things differently
• Excellent English communication and presentation skills, including exceptional listening capabilities, deep curiosity and strong writing skills
• Strong organizational skills across teams, and able to engage stakeholders, manage differences and build consensus