Business Group Knowledge Lawyer - Real Estate

WOMBLE BOND DICKINSON; West of England; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

WOMBLE BOND DICKINSON is seeking a Business Group Knowledge Lawyer (BGKL) to work with the Real Estate Business Group. You will drive innovation projects, promote self-service legal tech, and act as a subject matter expert for tools like Orbital and Avail while collaborating with the BGH and Legal Technology Team.

You will lead the dissemination of updates, manage risk, and implement new working practices across teams, helping onboarding trainees and developing talent in a large UK firm.

Qualifications

• Qualified lawyer with at least 5 years PQE in real estate.
• Strong knowledge of English and Welsh real estate law.
• Interest in innovation and AI adoption.
• Experience coaching or training colleagues.
• Experience in a large professional services firm.

Responsibilities

• Lead dissemination of legal knowledge and best practices across the Real Estate Business Group.
• Collaborate with BGH and Innovation Team to promote AI and legal technology adoption (Orbital, Avail).
• Develop and maintain training programmes for trainees and early-stage talent.
• Ensure consistent processes and knowledge management across teams and departments.
• Support tender responses related to knowledge management and client training.

Skills

Communication skills

Self-starter

Innovative mindset

AI interest

Coaching skills

Team collaboration

Education

Qualified lawyer

5+ years PQE

Tools

Orbital

Avail AI toolkit

Legal technology tools

Job description

The Business Group Knowledge Lawyer (BGKL) is a senior lawyer role which will report directly to the Business Group Head (BGH) for our Real Estate Business Group which encompasses our core real estate teams, residential development and planning.

In this role you will work strategically with the BGH to help deliver innovation projects and other priorities. This will include playing a key role in promoting the use of our self‑service legal technology toolkit and liaising with our Legal Technology Application Manager, acting as the subject matter expert for legal technology tools that are applicable to the Real Estate Business Group.

What does the role include?

You will be part of a team of two knowledge lawyers and a knowledge paralegal who will work with the BGH and the various teams across the business group to drive a culture of excellence and continuous development of our legal knowledge. You will facilitate an environment where teams and individual fee‑earners feel empowered develop their own knowledge and skills and can see the value in doing so.

There is not expectation to be a subject matter expert for every specialism within the business group. Instead, you'll work collaboratively with the teams to ensure that every team has the right processes in place for onboarding trainees, developing early‑stage talent, keeping abreast of new legal developments, sharing knowledge and much more.

You will be leading the dissemination of legal and best practice updates, identifying and mitigating existing and new risks, and identifying and implementing new ways of working, particularly where those initiatives are broadly applicable across the business group.

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

What are the core responsibilities and deliverables?

You will work closely with the other Knowledge Lawyer and the Knowledge Paralegal in the real estate business group to deliver the following:

• Continuous review of each team's processes for developing legal knowledge, ensuring consistency and best practice across all teams.
• Promote knowledge development across the teams through our third‑party content and knowledge tools. Manage training and development of legal knowledge for trainees and other early‑stage talent.
• Implement, maintain and review a training programme across the business group, and facilitate training within teams and sub‑teams as necessary.
• Ensure teams and sub‑teams have the necessary tools and (where still applicable) precedent banks of relevant documents and information required to deliver excellent client service.
• Provide guidance and support to the Knowledge Paralegal; particularly ensuring that the Paralegal is effectively fulfilling their primary role in helping teams to co‑ordinate the development of legal knowledge.
• Work with the BGH and play a key role in promoting the use of AI and our firmwide legal technology toolkit, acting as the subject matter expert for legal technology tools that are specific to the real estate group (eg Orbital and Avail).
• Leading on the sharing of information of broad applicability to the business group on risk, working practices, and legal updates.
• Supporting the business development team in responding to tender questions relating specifically to knowledge management in the business group.
• Work with our business development, marketing and content creation teams in terms of horizon scanning; monitoring Bills, Law Commission consultations, major case law developments and other relevant sources to ensure the teams are well sighted on legal changes which present opportunities for us to provide thought leadership, marketing and proactive solutions to our clients.
• Supporting the wider Knowledge for Growth team on client training, events and other client facing materials and our Informed Counsel programme where the sessions are to be delivered on topics relevant to the Business Group.

What does the ideal candidate look like?

You’ll need to have extensive experience of working within the real estate team of a large UK law practice. You should also be able to demonstrate an interest in innovation and AI. 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 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 English and Welsh real estate law (you will support our Scottish real estate team but prior knowledge of Scottish real estate is not required).
• Have a strong interest in innovation and the development and adoption of AI tools.
• Previous experience of coaching, delivering training presentations or mentoring other colleagues.
• Experience of working within a large professional services practice.

What makes it great to work here?

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. 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.