Business Innovation Strategist

Location(s): Dallas, New York, or Washington, DC

Schedule: 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM

FLSA: Non-Exempt

Position Type: Full-Time/Regular

About Akin and the Innovation & AI Team

Akin is a leading international law firm with more than 1,000 lawyers across the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The legal market is being rebuilt around AI, and Akin has chosen to lead that change rather than wait for it. We are investing seriously in the technology, workflows and people that will define how legal work is done over the next decade.

As part of a relatively new Innovation & AI team, you'll help shape how we work, what we prioritize and how we earn trust across the firm. We are a small team that relies on being quick, adaptable and willing to try things. We work directly with partners, practice leaders and business teams at every level, with the access and mandate to act on what we find.

The team thinks like a start-up, but we work as colleagues. People here are given a lot of independence and are trusted to own their work. That freedom sits within a genuinely collaborative culture, where the aim is to make lawyers' working lives better, not to impose change on them.

We also know that the hard part of innovation isn't buying technology. It's getting people to change how they work, and making that change last. That's why we put as much effort into adoption, training and relationships as we do into the tools themselves. We aren't interested in shiny technology or more AI-generated content for its own sake. We want to solve problems that matter, build things lawyers actually use, and prove the impact.

About the Role

The role can reside in the Dallas, New York or Washington, DC office with hybrid work capabilities andwill turn Business Services’ momentum in AI and automation into a high-performing portfolio of change and transformation. Akin has invested heavily in foundational AI and automation platforms, adoption across the firm has been strong, and Business Services teams are generating a steady flow of good ideas and proposals. The Strategist will take this work to the next level across Finance, HR, Risk and Compliance, Marketing and Business Development, Client Value, and Operations.

Reporting to the Director of Innovation and AI, the Strategist will help departments identify the highest-value, most viable processes to transform. Working closely with the Innovation & AI team, the Project Management Office (PMO) and other Technology teams, the Strategist will partner with subject matter experts, departmental leaders and vendors to take solutions from prototype to production. The role will make the most of the firm’s existing toolsets to deliver measurable value and return on investment (ROI).

This is a hands-on role with real autonomy and responsibility for leading cross-functional change. Success requires more than applying tools: it demands a thorough understanding of the constraints of a highly regulated firm and the nuances of law firm operations. Suited to an ambitious, motivated self-starter, the role offers an opportunity to help shape a newly created function and embed a lasting culture of innovation within Business Services and the firm as a whole.

Key responsibilities of this position include:

Horizon Scanning and Thought Leadership

• Monitor the latest developments in AI, automation and other transformative technologies shaping the legal industry.
• Support the firm’s visibility in the market by contributing to case studies, publications and internal reports on Innovation.
• Represent the firm at legal technology conferences and events to bring back insights and maintain a forward-looking perspective and innovative edge.

Demand, Prioritization and Ownership

• Serve as the primary point of contact for Business Services requests relating to AI and process improvement, assessing and evaluating proposed opportunities.
• Work with department leaders to surface, assess, and prioritize opportunities by impact, effort, and readiness, and contribute to the team’s visible, ranked project and opportunity pipeline.
• Translate loosely defined operational pain points into scoped initiatives with owners, success criteria and measurement.

Delivery

• Lead and own structured cross-functional improvement programs, from scoping through to post-implementation review.
• Model best practice through each stage: demos, proofs of concept, proofs of value, pilots, and deployment.
• Build a first working version with the subject matter expert (SME) team. Map the current process, design the target workflow, configure or prototype the solution (e.g., a new agent, automation or reporting), and test it against real work.
• Partner with the PMO and IT on delivery, and with Innovation on tooling, configuration, and governance.
• Partner with Practice Innovation Strategists to address needs and triage requests, so Business Services solutions sit inside firmwide standards rather than beside them.

Capability and Adoption

• Extend the firm's AI capability pathway into Business Services, building a network of departmental champions who sustain adoption locally.
• Work with HR, Learning & Development and IT Training to embed AI and process topics into existing curricula through role-specific, workflow-based sessions.
• Document and share playbooks, templates and worked examples so that a solution for one department can expand and benefit other departments.

Measurement and Reporting

• Own the benefits case: set baselines before change, measure afterwards, and report time saved, cost avoided, error reduction and service improvement.
• Provide regular, credible reporting to the COO, CIO and PMO on pipeline, work in flight and benefits realized.
• Keep work aligned with firm AI governance, information security, information governance and data standards.

Qualifications (Experience, Knowledge, Skills & Abilities):

Required:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
• Minimum of five years in process improvement, transformation, or innovation, ideally within professional services.
• A background in business analysis and workflow design, including documenting current and future-state processes and writing proposals.
• Current, hands-on experience applying generative AI and/or automation to real business processes.
• A proven record of delivering cross-departmental initiatives with demonstrable, measurable efficiency or performance gains.
• Experience facilitating workshops to map processes, uncover blockers and document requirements.
• Experience building consensus among senior stakeholders, onboarding end users, and supporting sustained, effective use of future-state solutions.
• Exposure to enterprise platforms such as ServiceNow, Workday, Intapp or Aderant.

Desirable:

• Strong understanding of how Finance, HR, Risk and Compliance, Marketing and Business Development, and Operations function in a corporate or law firm setting.
• Strong working knowledge of Microsoft 365, including Copilot, Teams, SharePoint and Power BI or equivalent reporting tools.
• Familiarity with low-code automation such as Power Automate.
• Collaborative approach with the ability to build trust, influence without formal authority and communicate directly about areas for improvement.
• Comfort working in a newly created role within an evolving function where processes and precedents are still being established.

The anticipated base salary range for this position in New York and Washington, DC is $120,000 to $170,000. The actual salary offered will be based on several factors, including, but not limited to, relevant education, qualifications, years of relevant experience, certifications or other professional licenses held, job-related knowledge and skills, business needs, and the location from which the work will be performed. Additionally, salary or hourly wages may be only part of the total compensation package, which may also include a full range of health and other insurance benefits, financial and/or other benefits (including 401(k) eligibility), a discretionary bonus, and various paid time off benefits. Additional information about benefits and rewards can be found here.

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