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 technical teams that keep innovative platforms stable, secure, and evolving to meet business needs? As the
Innovation Applications Lead, you'll own the day-to-day health and long-term success of our innovation applications-guiding a team of Applications Engineers, coordinating specialized resources, and partnering closely with Innovation and Information Technology (IT) teams to deliver reliable, scalable, and forward-looking solutions. This role sits at the intersection of operations and innovation, ensuring today's tools run smoothly while enabling tomorrow's enhancements.
- Team Leadership: Lead and develop Applications Engineers responsible for the daily support, maintenance, and troubleshooting of innovation applications.
- Application Lifecycle Oversight: Ensure applications are stable, scalable, and performing as expected through proactive upgrades, enhancements, and performance monitoring.
- Resource Management: Coordinate and onboard contract resources to support large-scale application changes, upgrades, or new implementations.
- Enhancement Delivery: Plan and manage new features, integrations, and improvements in partnership with Innovation and IT stakeholders.
- Vendor Partnership: Manage relationships with external vendors to support application licensing, upgrades, and ongoing support needs.
- Governance & Compliance: Ensure applications align with security, risk, and Responsible AI (RAI) governance standards.
- Documentation & Reporting: Maintain clear documentation of configurations, changes, and operational procedures, and communicate status, risks, and priorities to leadership.
- Continuous Improvement: Identify and implement opportunities to enhance application performance, reliability, and user experience.
What You'll Bring- Education: Bachelor's degree in information technology, Computer Science, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
- Experience: 8+ years of experience in application management or IT operations, ideally within legal or professional services environments.
- People Leadership: Proven ability to manage technical teams and effectively coordinate with external or contract resources.
- Technical Ecosystem Knowledge: Familiarity with the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, automation platforms, and custom-built applications.
- Application Management Expertise: Strong understanding of application lifecycle management, system integrations, and performance optimization.
- Risk & Governance Awareness: Working knowledge of security, compliance, and governance frameworks.
- Communication & Problem-Solving: Clear communicator with strong leadership presence and a practical, solutions-oriented mindset.
- Legal Technology Exposure (Preferred): Experience supporting legal or legal-adjacent technology solutions.
- Specialized Tools (Preferred): Hands-on exposure to platforms such as Harvey, Legora, Centari, Relativity, RelOne, RelAir, Reveal, and Brainspace, as well as legal analytics, document automation, or workflow optimization tools.
If you're excited to lead teams, strengthen critical innovation platforms, and help shape how technology supports the future of legal services, 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. #LI-Hybrid #LI-LC1
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