Practice Innovation Advisor

Job ID: 8765

Updated: Apr 21, 2026

Location: Chicago, IL, United States

Category: Innovation

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About Kirkland & Ellis

At Kirkland & Ellis, we don't just meet the standard for legal excellence - we set it. Our culture is built on teamwork, ingenuity and an unwavering commitment to continuous growth. We tackle the most sophisticated legal challenges with bold ideas and innovative solutions, powered by the exceptional experience and ambition of our 7,000+ people, including 4,000+ attorneys, across 23 offices worldwide. Our dedicated professionals share our lawyers' commitment to excellence and show up each day to do meaningful work that helps drive global business, investment and innovation forward.

What You'll Do

At Kirkland & Ellis, we are united in our ambition and drive to move forward. We recognize that the legal landscape is constantly evolving, and our clients face increasingly complex and dynamic challenges that require creative and effective solutions. To meet these demands, we invest in cutting-edge legal technology, tools, and methodologies that empower our attorneys to deliver best-in-class service with efficiency, precision, and innovation. The Firm believes that by embracing innovation, we can better serve our clients' goals and achieve outstanding results.

As a Practice Innovation Advisor, you will be part of the Practice Innovation team, which supports the firm's strategic goals of enhancing client service, efficiency, and profitability. The complexity, scale, and pace of specific practice group work require customized, tech-enabled solutions that support both attorney workflows and client outcomes.

• Collaborate with legal teams to assess current workflows, identify pain points, and to assess the feasibility, impact, and ROI of potential innovations.
• Designing and running technology pilots from start to finish with minimal oversight, including defining objectives, scope, timeline, budget, metrics, and success criteria, and managing stakeholders, risks, and issues.
• Collaborating with practice groups to socialize new technology and to facilitate adoption and change management.
• Engage with practice group leadership and Knowledge Management attorneys, supporting strategic initiatives and becoming the face of Innovation efforts at practice group meetings and training sessions.
• Ensure cross-functional alignment of practice-specific needs with firmwide innovation initiatives, acting as a bridge between legal teams, innovation professionals, and firm leadership.
• Map existing legal processes and workflows in order to identify opportunities for optimization, automation, and AI enhancements.
• Complete deep dives on practice group use case requests, developing and stress testing workflows and advancing custom-built solutions.
• Work with, identify, develop, and maintain key external vendor relationships. Foster impactful engagements with Pre-Sales, Customer Success, and Product touchpoints.
• Understand and address potential risks of emerging technology, working closely with Innovation Enablement and Responsible AI personnel to ethically and effectively deploy new legal technology.
• Promote a culture of innovation and continuous learning within the firm, by sharing insights, best practices, and lessons learned.
• Staying informed of new technology, market trends, and best practices in the legal industry and beyond, and sharing insights and recommendations with the Practice Innovation team and the firm.
• Contributing to the development and maintenance of the firm's innovation strategy, roadmap, and portfolio.
• Collaborate with and support the team and build and foster working relationships with business partners across the Firm.

OTHER FUNCTIONS This list is not exhaustive and may be supplemented and changed as necessary.

• Demonstrate an understanding of the operating policy requirements necessary to be a good Kirkland Firm steward.
• Ability to learn and work independently but actively listen to and understand and follow directives to get desired results.
• Ability to work overtime and perform duties outside of scheduled work hours, as needed, to meet the business needs of the Firm.
• Lead special projects as assigned, as activities designated to the Practice Innovation team will continue to evolve and shift as needed based on the needs of Firm leadership.
• The Firm may adjust or assign responsibilities within the context of this role to support the Firm as required.

What You'll Bring

Education, Work Experience, Skills

• JD or LLM, required.
• 5+ years prior experience at a law firm or customer-facing experience at a legal technology vendor, required.
• Hands on experience leading enterprise software implementation from evaluation through deployment, including both strategic planning and day-to-day execution of deliverables.
• Demonstrated familiarity with leading legal tech platforms, GenAI platforms, automation, contract lifecycle management (CLM), or business intelligence tools.
• Experience with legal practice process improvement, automation, and no-code or low-code workflow platforms, preferred.
• Experience with formal change management processes and procedures, preferred.
• This position requires a high level of collaboration with internal and external clients; therefore, the ideal candidate must interact well with people at all levels with a high degree of accuracy, professionalism, and accountability.
• The ideal candidate will have excellent analytical, troubleshooting, organizational, time management, and planning skills.
• A successful candidate will demonstrate effective interpersonal and communication skills, both verbally and in writing. Experience presenting to attorney audiences, preferred.
• The candidate must be self-starting, proactive, organized, and able to exercise independent judgement and utilize critical thinking.

Compensation

The base salary range below represents the low and high end of the salary range for this position in each of the below locations. This range may differ based on your geographic location and cost of living considerations. At Kirkland & Ellis, we consider compensation more than just a base salary. We offer an exceptional range of flexible benefits including comprehensive healthcare, paid time off, and retirement. We also offer personal support and tailored learning and development opportunities all designed to help you realize your full potential both in life and at work.

Compensation Range:

• New York City: $153,000 - $211,000
• Chicago: $153,000 - $191,000
• Washington D.C.: $153,000 - $211,000
• Boston: $153,000 - $211,000
• Bay Area: $153,000 - $220,000
• Los Angeles: $153,000 - $211,000

How to Apply

Thank you for your interest in Kirkland & Ellis LLP. To complete an application and submit your resume, please click "Apply Now."

Don't meet every job requirement? That's okay! If you're excited about this role but your experience doesn't perfectly fit every qualification, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right person for this role or others at Kirkland.

Equal Employment Opportunity

All employment decisions, including the recruiting, hiring, placement, training availability, promotion, compensation, evaluation, disciplinary actions, and termination of employment (if necessary) are made without regard to the employee's race, color, creed, religion, sex, pregnancy or childbirth, personal appearance, family responsibilities, sexual orientation or preference, gender identity, political affiliation, source of income, place of residence, national or ethnic origin, ancestry, age, marital status, military veteran status, unfavorable discharge from military service, physical or mental disability, or on any other basis prohibited by applicable law. #LI-Hybrid #LI-AR1

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