Mishcon de Reya LLP
Practice Transformation Manager
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Role Purpose
The Practice Transformation Manager will lead the operational execution of the firm's AI and legal technology strategy on the practice of law side. The role is accountable for identifying, shaping and delivering opportunities that improve lawyer productivity, matter profitability, service quality and client experience, while enabling the development of new AI-enabled products and service propositions.
Working across practice groups, the role will connect Partners, Fee Earners, Legal Engineers, Knowledge Lawyers, Product, Technology, Legal Operations, the Legal Support Hub, Business Development and The Academy. It will provide visible leadership for adoption, ensure that redesigned ways of working are embedded, and demonstrate measurable value from the firm's investment in AI and legal technology.
Key Responsibilities
AI Strategy, Governance and Adoption
- Lead the firm's practice-facing AI transformation agenda, including the adoption and effective use of Legora and other approved AI and legal technology capabilities.
- Turn the firm's AI strategy into a prioritised roadmap of practice, client and service-delivery opportunities, aligned to commercial priorities and available delivery capacity.
- Mobilise and coordinate the firm's AI Champion network, AI working groups and relevant Steering Groups, ensuring clear objectives, ownership, escalation routes and decision-making.
- Drive sustained, high-value adoption through targeted engagement, role-based use cases, communications, demonstrations, training and reinforcement activity.
- Contribute to firm-wide AI governance, including responsible use, regulatory and professional obligations, information security, data protection and risk management.
- Provide evidence-based input into strategic decisions concerning pricing, return on investment, commercial impact, talent development, product development and client innovation.
Practice Transformation and Workflow Redesign
- Partner with Fee Earners and Knowledge Lawyers to identify where legal work can be simplified, standardised, automated, disaggregated or delivered through alternative operating models.
- Lead discovery workshops to define business problems, map current legal workflows and pain points, establish user and client needs, and design future AI-enabled ways of working.
- Work with Legal Engineers, Knowledge Lawyers and technical teams to translate opportunities into clear requirements, prototypes, workflows, playbooks and deployable solutions.
- Ensure that transformation activity addresses process, people, data, technology, risk and behavioural change rather than treating technology deployment as the end outcome.
- Create repeatable approaches and reusable assets so that successful solutions can be scaled across matters, teams and practice groups.
Client-Facing Products and Service Propositions
- Work directly with clients, Fee Earners, Business Development and Product teams to design and develop AI-enabled products, client portals, managed services and differentiated service propositions.
- Help articulate the client problem, proposition, target users, commercial model, service design, operational requirements and measures of success.
- Support pilots and early client engagements, capture feedback and convert learning into scalable and supportable offerings.
- Contribute to client conversations, demonstrations, pitches and thought leadership where practice transformation or legal innovation expertise is required.
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Delivery and Change Leadership
- Lead transformation and legal technology initiatives from initial opportunity assessment through design, pilot, implementation, adoption and post-implementation review.
- Develop proportionate business cases setting out the problem, options, investment requirement, delivery approach, risks, dependencies, expected benefits and success measures.
- Define workstreams, milestones, responsibilities and stakeholder engagement plans, coordinating with Project Managers where formal project governance and delivery control are required.
- Identify and actively manage delivery risks, dependencies, resistance and capacity constraints, escalating matters that require sponsor or governance decisions.
- Collaborate with The Academy and Knowledge Lawyers to deliver practical learning, communications and adoption interventions tailored to different user groups.
Technology, Product and Market Collaboration
- Work closely with Product and Technology teams to assess whether existing platform capabilities can meet the need and, where they cannot, support deeper assessment of configuration, integration, build or vendor options.
- Support the evaluation of vendors, proofs of concept and pilots using clear functional, technical, risk, commercial and user-experience criteria.
- Monitor developments in AI, legal technology, competitor offerings and client expectations, translating relevant market insight into actionable recommendations for the firm.
- Promote disciplined experimentation, ensuring that pilots have defined hypotheses, success criteria, ownership and routes to scale or closure.
Value Realisation and Performance
- Define baselines and measurable outcomes for each initiative, including adoption, time saved, capacity released, quality, risk reduction, financial value, matter economics and client impact where relevant.
- Establish mechanisms to monitor utilisation, user behaviour, value delivery and return on investment, working with Value Management and Finance where appropriate.
- Provide clear, concise reporting to sponsors and governance forums, highlighting delivery status, adoption, realised benefits, risks and decisions required.
- Use performance data and user feedback to refine solutions and ensure improvements are sustained after implementation.
Team Leadership and Capability Building
- Provide line management, direction and prioritisation for the Legal Engineering team, ensuring that work is aligned to firm and practice priorities.
- Set clear objectives, support professional development and create an environment that encourages collaboration, experimentation, quality and accountability.
- Build transformation capability across the firm by coaching stakeholders in structured problem solving, workflow redesign, adoption and benefits-led delivery.
- Manage demand transparently, balancing strategic initiatives, practice needs, client opportunities and team capacity.
Essential
Experience
- Significant experience leading legal transformation, legal innovation or technology-enabled change within a law firm, professional services organisation or legal technology environment.
- Strong understanding of legal service delivery, matter workflows, law-firm economics and the practical realities of influencing change in a partnership environment.
- Demonstrable experience of taking initiatives from discovery and design through implementation, adoption and benefits realisation.
- Practical experience of generative AI, legal technology, workflow automation, document automation or digital legal-service solutions.
- Experience of working with Partners, senior business leaders, clients, multidisciplinary delivery teams and technology vendors.
- Strong facilitation, process-mapping, requirements-definition and problem-solving skills.
- Experience of developing business cases, defining success measures and using data to evidence value and inform decisions.
- People-management or team-leadership experience
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Desirable
- Experience developing client-facing legal products, managed services, portals or alternative delivery models.
- Knowledge of AI governance, data protection, information security and the professional or regulatory considerations relevant to the responsible use of AI in legal services.
- Experience with platforms such as Legora and complementary legal workflow, knowledge, document automation or collaboration tools.
- A relevant qualification in Lean Six Sigma, change management, Agile, project management, business analysis, legal operations or service design.
- A legal qualification or substantial experience working directly with legal practice teams.
Key Competencies
- Strategic thinking and commercial mindset
- Stakeholder management and influencing skills
- Innovation and continuous improvement mindset
- Strong facilitation and workshop leadership
- Change management and adoption expertise
- Analytical and problem-solving capability
- Excellent communication and presentation skills
- Ability to operate effectively in ambiguous environments
- Results-oriented with strong execution capability
- Collaborative leadership style
Please note that this job profile is not an exhaustive list of duties but merely an outline of the key components of the role. You may be required by your line manager to take on additional responsibilities when requested.
About
About Mishcon de Reya LLP
Mishcon de Reya is an independent law firm, which now employs over 1400 people with more than 650 lawyers offering a wide range of legal services to companies and individuals. The firm has grown rapidly in recent years, showing more than 40% revenue growth in the past five years alone.
With presence in London, Oxford, Cambridge, Singapore, Hong Kong and UAE, the firm services an international community of clients and provides advice in situations where the constraints of geography often do not apply.
The work the firm undertakes is cross-border, multi-jurisdictional and complex, centred around three increasingly entwined and connected sectors: the Innovation Economy, Private Wealth and Capital, and Real Estate. The firm is known as a disputes powerhouse with a formidable capacity firmwide for dispute resolution.
We strive to create a fully diverse and inclusive workplace where all our people are empowered to fulfil their potential. We are proud of our agile working culture and are always happy to talk flexible working.
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