The Business Group Knowledge Lawyer (BGKL) is a senior lawyer role who will report directly into the Business Group Head (BGH) for our Corporate and Commercial Services Business Group (CCS).   You will be part of a team of two knowledge lawyers and a knowledge paralegal who will work with the BGH.

In this role you will work strategically with the BGH to help deliver key knowledge and innovation priorities for the Business Group.  This will include:

• supporting the lawyers in the Business Group responsible for technical excellence in their area of expertise, including supporting on training and promoting a culture of excellence
• playing a leading role in developing and promoting innovation in the Business Group, including developing and promoting the use of our self-service legal technology toolkit and acting as the subject matter expert for legal technology tools that are specific to the Business Group
• supporting on the preparation and, where appropriate, delivery of client facing knowledge-led content.

What does the role include?

The Business Group covers a broad range of specialist corporate and commercial legal areas, carried on through a number of teams. There is no expectation that this role requires you to be a subject matter expert for every specialism within the Business Group, although a strong grounding in Digital and Technology law and practice will be particularly advantageous, both in terms of supporting the specialist lawyers in that area but also holding a strong interest and understanding in the opportunities that technology presents for the Business Group and its clients.

You will work with the BGH, team leaders and the wider Business Group Knowledge Team to:

• drive a culture of excellence and continuous development of the Business Group's legal knowledge
• facilitate an environment where teams and individual lawyers feel empowered to play a key role in developing their own knowledge and can see the value in doing so
• ensure the adoption of processes to support early-stage talent development and that the wider Business Group is kept up to date with new legal developments, risk and best practice updates and new ways of working
• support in the preparation and, where appropriate, delivery of knowledge-led value add training for the Business Group's clients.

In addition, you will work with the Chief Innovation Officer (and the wider Innovation & Legal Technology Team) to support the adoption of legal technology, drive innovation, and identify more effective ways of delivering legal services.

What are the core responsibilities and deliverables?

• Continuous improvement of each team's processes for developing legal knowledge ensuring consistency and best practice across all teams.
• Supporting the lawyers in the Business Group responsible for technical excellence in their area of expertise, with a particular focus on Digital and Technology law and practice.
• Manage training and development of legal knowledge for early-stage talent, along with wider current awareness in respect of risk, working practices and legal updates for the broader Business Group.
• Promote development across the teams through our third-party content and related tools.
• Play a key role in promoting the use of AI and our self-service legal technology toolkit acting as the subject matter expert for legal technology tools that are specific to the Business Group.
• Work closely with the wider Business Group Knowledge Team, particularly ensuring that the Knowledge Team's paralegal support is effectively supervised and developed.
• Supporting in responding to tender questions relating specifically to knowledge management and innovation in the Business Group.
• Work with our business development teams in terms of horizon scanning and innovation developments to help identify opportunities for us to provide training, thought leadership and proactive solutions for our clients.
• Supporting on the preparation and, where appropriate, delivery of client facing knowledge-led content.

What does the ideal candidate look like?

You'll need to have strong experience of working within the commercial/corporate team of a large UK law practice.  As well as this background you should be able to demonstrate an interest in innovation and AI and want this change of direction in your legal career.  You will need to be a self-starter taking the initiative to work with a variety of people both across our firm and externally to bring expertise back to the group.  Communication skills are key as well as the ability to interpret new content and drive new ways of working.  You'll be influencing change, introducing new concepts/processes and championing innovation.

To be successful in this role you'll need as a minimum:

• You will need to be a qualified lawyer with at least 5 year's + PQE.

• Able to demonstrate strong knowledge of UK commercial contracting law.
• Have a strong interest in innovation, the adoption of legal technology and embedding AI into ways of working to drive continuous improvement across the Business Group.
• Previous experience of coaching, training or mentoring.
• Experience of working and driving change within a large law practice.

Previous experience in a legal technology and AI role is not required although we are looking for a strong interest in this space.

We continually work hard to create an open culture that sets us apart from other firms. 

As signatories to the Mindful Business Charter, it's important to us that our people are able to maintain healthy and happy lives, both in and out of work. We have a number of resources and initiatives designed to support health and wellbeing and we're very happy to talk flexible working.

Through our DEI initiatives we create an environment in which difference is valued. We have an Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Group, led by our Board Sponsor, which works with our colleague networks (we currently have firm supported networks for race, ethnicity, and cultural heritage, LGBTQ+, disabilities, neurodiversity, families, and women's career development and we're in constant dialogue with our people about how we expand our networks to better support everybody). Find out more about DEI at WBD here. We encourage applicants from all social backgrounds, ethnicities, disabilities, gender identities and sexual orientations.

We are committed to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible to all. If you have a disability or long term condition and need us to make any adjustments to give you the best possible recruitment process, please let us know by contacting the recruiter on the right hand side of this page. Please also let us know if you need this job advert or the application form in a different format.

We will offer an interview to candidates with a disability or long-term condition who meet the minimum criteria for this role. You can opt into this scheme within the application form. Your response to this question is only used for this purpose, is only visible to the recruitment team and is not used for data monitoring. 

We are an in-house recruitment team and will always aim to fill our roles directly in the first instance. If you're an agency, please click here for ways that you can work with us.