Legal AI Innovation Lead

McGuireWoods LLP; New York (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 270,000; Full time

Job summary

McGuireWoods LLP is seeking a highly motivated Legal AI Solutions Lead to join our Innovation and AI Department. You will lead AI initiatives, identify AI use cases, and collaborate with practice leadership to design and implement AI solutions for a large law firm.

The role requires 4+ years of legal experience and 2+ years of AI experience, with strong project management and communication skills, and a willingness to travel as needed.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required; JD or other advanced degree preferred.
• 4+ years law firm or in‑house legal experience.
• 2+ years of AI experience.
• Experience working with attorneys and familiarity with legal work, combined with a strong understanding of technology, AI, and its applications in the legal field.
• Ability to travel or work evenings and weekends when necessary.
• Growth mindset with willingness to learn and take direction.

Responsibilities

• Identifies existing work processes that would benefit from AI enhancement and builds agents for use by attorney and business professional teams directly.
• Evaluates AI use cases and makes recommendations in support of firm AI goals that will influence the strategy of the Innovation & AI department.
• Collaborates with practice leadership to identify areas within their practice where AI would be particularly useful and designs, builds, and implements those AI solutions.
• Conducts regular meetings with attorneys to scope complex AI‑related challenges and develop tailored solutions for them.
• Proactively communicates with attorneys, vendors, and the IT department to understand and diagnose use case successes and shortcomings, resolve technical issues related to AI use cases, and deliver constructive feedback to align with firm AI strategy.
• Anticipates and addresses potential technical challenges around attorney use cases.
• Develops and executes strategies for driving AI adoption, addressing technical barriers and user experience challenges. Facilitates the continuous improvement of training techniques based on lessons learned.
• Analyzes new AI functionalities, assessing their technical implications and compatibility with firm systems, and educates attorneys on their use.
• Creates and delivers short‑form content addressing common issues, advanced use cases, and frequently asked questions.
• Oversees AI pilot onboarding and offboarding of attorneys and business professionals when evaluating new AI technology. Prepares recommendations following pilot evaluations for senior leadership.
• Ensures that use case information is well documented, including technical specifications and limitations, and escalates findings at team meetings.
• Manages tasks related to use case testing under project and milestone deadlines.
• Manages and executes processes pertinent to assessing trends, themes, and issues across use cases, and escalates observations during team meetings.
• Researches enterprise, specialized, and emerging AI solutions on the market to compare/contrast functionalities and suitability.
• Provides input and experience to guide firmwide AI decision making, raising awareness of potential technical limitations and risks, as well as opportunities.
• Assists in collecting information needed to respond to client AI inquiries.
• Prepares summaries of work that the team has performed, including qualitative and quantitative data.

Skills

AI experience

Communication skills

Project management

Legal industry knowledge

Relationship-building

Education

Bachelor’s degree

JD or equivalent degree

Tools

Harvey

Copilot

Job description

McGuireWoods LLP is seeking a highly motivated Legal AI Solutions Lead to join our Innovation and AI Department. You will lead AI initiatives, identify AI use cases, and collaborate with practice leadership to design and implement AI solutions for a large law firm.

The role requires 4+ years of legal experience and 2+ years of AI experience, with strong project management and communication skills, and a willingness to travel as needed.