Director of Practice Solutions

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 22 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

Are you energized by leading large-scale technology platforms that transform how legal teams work and deliver value to clients? As Director of Practice Solutions, you'll lead the firm's Practice Solutions organization-driving the design, delivery, and operation of advanced platforms that power legal and administrative team delivery. This role sits at the intersection of Innovation, Information Technology (IT), and legal practice, with a strong emphasis on automation, generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), agentic systems, and enterprise knowledge and document management.

Reporting directly to the Chief Information Officer (CIO), you'll partner closely with the Chief Innovation Officer, Director of Practice Innovation, and Director of Innovation Engineering to ensure firmwide alignment, rapid prototyping, and scalable deployment of solutions. In the near term, a significant focus will be on building and advancing internal Artificial Intelligence Operations (AIOps) platforms, data pipelines, and reusable architectures that support both client demands and long-term business objectives.

You'll oversee multiple practice delivery and platform teams, ensuring workflows, compliance requirements, and enabling technologies work seamlessly together-while fostering a culture of innovation, operational excellence, and continuous improvement.

• Practice Solutions Strategy & Leadership - Develop and execute a forward-looking technology roadmap for legal practice solutions in close collaboration with Innovation and IT leadership.
• Innovation Delivery Partnership - Act as a technical advisor and execution partner to the Innovation team, guiding feasibility, architecture, environment design, and delivery pathways from pilot through production.
• Platform & Application Oversight - Lead teams responsible for AI platforms, automation solutions, product engineering, knowledge systems, and legal workflow technologies, ensuring reliability, scalability, and alignment with practice needs.
• Knowledge Management Enablement - Define and deliver enterprise knowledge systems, including content lifecycle management, taxonomy development, and integration with practice delivery platforms across litigation and transactional teams.
• AI & Automation Enablement - Steward GenAI implementations, agentic workflows, automation platforms, and custom-built legal products that enhance efficiency and insight.
• AI Infrastructure & AIOps - Oversee Azure Artificial Intelligence (AI) services, on-premise AI and graphics processing unit (GPU) environments, and reusable architectures supporting semantic search, application programming interfaces (APIs), and data pipelines.
• Governance & Risk Alignment - Partner with Security, Risk Management, Enterprise Architecture, Responsible AI (RAI), and Data Governance teams to streamline governance while enabling rapid, compliant delivery.
• Operational Excellence - Ensure stable, efficient operations across document management systems (DMS), collaboration platforms, knowledge systems, and production Innovation solutions.
• People & Culture Development - Build, mentor, and inspire high-performing technical and knowledge management teams, fostering strong cross-functional partnerships and continuous improvement.

What You'll Bring

• Education - Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree or equivalent experience in technology, information systems, or a related field preferred.
• Experience - 15+ years of experience leading technology or project delivery teams within legal or similar professional services environments.
• Technology Transformation Expertise - Proven success driving enterprise technology transformation, change management, and large-scale platform delivery.
• AI & AIOps Acumen - Hands-on experience with AI operations, including GenAI and agentic solutions, and the supporting infrastructure and services.
• Cloud & Integration Knowledge - Strong understanding of cloud platforms, APIs, and enterprise integration strategies.
• Governance & Compliance Insight - Working knowledge of data governance, security, privacy, and compliance frameworks.
• Knowledge Management Leadership - Demonstrated success in enterprise knowledge management, taxonomy development, and information architecture.
• Document & Collaboration Platforms - Expertise with document management systems (iManage preferred) and collaboration platforms such as SharePoint.
• Leadership & Communication - Exceptional communication, strategic planning, budgeting, and stakeholder engagement skills, with an empathetic and inclusive leadership style.
• Mobility - Willingness to travel as needed.
• Preferred Experience - Familiarity with litigation support technologies and legal research methodologies.
• If you're excited to lead cutting-edge platforms, scale AI-driven solutions, and shape how legal teams deliver work through innovation and operational excellence, we'd love to hear from you.

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.