Mishcon de Reya LLP
AI & Innovation Lead
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AI & Innovation Lead
AI and Innovation Lead
About the Role
Our Technology team continues to go from strength to strength, playing a vital role in firm-wide innovation and strategy. Far from being a support function, Technology is integral to the firm's growth agenda, backed by strong leadership engagement and sustained investment.
The AI & Innovation Team exists to accelerate learning and delivery in areas where automation, optimisation, and emerging technology can create step-change improvements. It works alongside Data, Platforms, and Architecture teams to ensure innovation is technically sound, secure, and aligned with enterprise standards, and alongside practice groups and business teams to ensure solutions are grounded in real legal and operational workflows.
The AI and Innovation Lead will play a central role in shaping and delivering Mishcon's AI and innovation agenda across legal practice, business operations, and service model innovation. Reporting to the Head of Product and working closely with Technology leadership, this role will identify high-value opportunities, turn ideas into practical propositions, and lead the experimentation, incubation, and scaling of AI-enabled products, workflows, and ways of working.
This role sits at the intersection of Product, Technology, legal practice groups, and firm strategy, ensuring innovation activity is grounded in real user needs, aligned to firm priorities, and translated into measurable outcomes. It also leads a multidisciplinary team spanning product management, innovation management, and implementation capability, and will work closely with stakeholders to move from concept to delivery at pace.
Duties and Responsibilities
Lead Mishcon's AI and Innovation Portfolio
- Own and shape a portfolio of AI and innovation opportunities across legal workflows, business operations, and service model innovation.
- Prioritise opportunities based on strategic fit, user need, delivery feasibility, value potential, and adoption readiness.
- Balance short-term impact with longer-term capability building and differentiated innovation.
- Act as a visible champion for responsible innovation, encouraging experimentation while reinforcing trust, quality, and professional standards.
Drive 0-1 Product and Proposition Development
- Lead the discovery, design, and incubation of new AI-enabled products, workflow capabilities, and service propositions.
- Work with lawyers, business teams, and senior stakeholders to identify unmet needs, problem statements and rapidly test innovations.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with legal technology start-ups, scale-ups, and vendors, keeping abreast of developments in legal tech and automation.
- Translate ideas into MVPs, pilots, or prototype services with clear hypotheses, success measurements, and scaling pathways.
Enable Practical AI Adoption Across the Firm
- Partner with practice groups and business teams to embed AI into real workflows and working practices.
- Introduce meaningful integrations that reduce workflow time, improve user experience, and service design, lowering cost-to-serve.
- Ensure successful initiatives move beyond piloting into repeatable and fully supported use.
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Support Service Model Innovation
- Collaborate with legal and business stakeholders to explore how AI improves service delivery, packaging, and scalability.
- Identify opportunities for new or improved client propositions, differentiated ways of working, and more effective service delivery models.
- Help translate innovation into tangible improvements in client value, lawyer experience, and firm capability.
Evaluate and Shape External Innovation Opportunities
- Assess emerging vendors, partners, and AI/legal technology developments.
- Conduct structured experiments (potentially with external partners/suppliers) and provide clear recommendations on buying, building, partnering, or stopping.
- Bring informed external insight into the firm in a commercially grounded, strategic-aligned manner.
Develop Practical Approaches to AI-Enabled Workflows
- Work closely with Technology, Data, Architecture, and Security teams to ensure AI-enabled solutions are deliverable, supportable, and aligned with firm standards.
- Help define practical patterns for integrating AI capabilities into existing systems, workflows, and knowledge assets, including human-in-the-loop controls.
- Lead the development of reusable AI delivery approaches for consistent application across the innovation portfolio.
Lead a Multidisciplinary Innovation Team
- Lead, coach, and develop a team of product managers, innovation managers, and selected implementation capability.
- Create a high-performance environment emphasizing curiosity, execution, learning, accountability, and outcomes.
- Build strong collaborative ways of working across Product, Technology, legal teams, and business stakeholders.
Measure Value and Inform Investment Decisions
- Define success metrics for innovation initiatives and track outcomes such as adoption, productivity, quality, risk reduction, capacity creation, and client impact.
- Provide senior stakeholders with clear evidence on what is working, not working, and where further investment is justified.
- Ensure the firm’s innovation efforts stay aligned with meaningful outcomes rather than ineffective activity alone.
Requirements
Essential Skills and Experience
- Strong product and innovation leadership, spanning discovery through to pilots, adoption, and scaling.
- Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills across legal practice groups, business teams, Product, Technology, and senior leadership.
- Strong commercial judgement, including assessing opportunities, prioritizing investment, and articulating value, trade-offs, and risks.
- Ability to lead multidisciplinary teams and clarify direction in ambiguous or fast-moving environments.
- Strong problem-solving and decision-making capability with a pragmatic approach to innovation, delivery, and operational outcomes.
- High levels of curiosity and external awareness, able to identify market developments and convert them into firm opportunities.
- Strong communication skills, framing problems clearly, telling compelling value stories, and aligning varied stakeholders.
- Good understanding of AI-enabled workflows, emerging product/delivery patterns, and practical deployment considerations within a regulated environment.
- Outcome-focused mindset, leveraging adoption and measurable impacts.
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Desirable Skills and Experience
- Experience leading cross-functional teams (covering product, delivery, technology, and **business).
- Hands-on expertise in legal services, professional services, financial services, consulting, or similar regulated/knowledge-intensive fields.
- Experience evaluating and partnering with external vendors, start-ups, via structured experiments and firm decisions.
- Experience driving change and adoption, especially when user behaviour and new working practices are pivotal.
- Familiarity with AI platforms, low-code tools (preferably Microsoft Power Platform), and practical, integrated AI use.
- Experience in service model innovation, proposition development, or client-focused innovation initiatives.
- Understanding of environments where innovation must balance security, reliability, and professional standards.
Note: This role description outlines key duties and should not be considered exhaustive. Additional responsibilities may be assigned by management as needed.
About Mishcon de Reya LLP
Mishcon de Reya is an independent law firm employing over 1400 professionals, including 650 lawyers specializing in a wide array of services for both companies and individuals. Over the past five years alone, the firm has achieved over 40% revenue growth.
With a dynamic presence covering London, Oxford, Cambridge, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the UAE, Mishcon caters to an international clientele, excelling in cross-border, multi-jurisdictional, and complex engagements. The firm’s focus centers on three interconnected sectors: the Innovation Economy, Private Wealth and Capital, and Real Estate. It is widely recognized as a disputes powerhouse, offering firm-wide expertise in dispute resolution.
Committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, Mishcon empowers its people to reach their full potential, embracing an agile working culture, and embracing flexible working arrangements.
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