Legal AI & Technology Product Manager

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

Schedule: 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM

FLSA: 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.

The Innovation & AI team is relatively new, which means this role won’t be joining a finished machine. The role will help shape how the team works, what it prioritizes and how it earns trust across the firm. We are a small team, and we rely on being quick, adaptable and willing to try things. We also have real access: we work directly with partners, practice leaders and business teams at every level, and we have the mandate to act on what we find.

We think 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

This role can reside in the Dallas, New York or Washington, DC office with hybrid work capabilities. The Legal AI & Technology Product Manager is a newly created role to make sure that investment pays off: that every tool is well managed, widely adopted and delivers measurable value. Working alongside the Strategists who identify and pilot new solutions with their groups, you will take ownership of each product as it moves into production and remain accountable for it through to retirement – including its configuration, adoption, governance, roadmap and results.

This is a hands-on product ownership role. Legal AI platforms are evolving at remarkable speed, with significant new capabilities arriving every few weeks. You will stay ahead of that pace: tracking vendor roadmaps, setting priorities and requirements, directing the configuration and testing of new features with our technology teams and vendors, and making sure each release is something end users can rely on with confidence. You will run adoption analytics and stand behind the numbers we report to firm leadership.

Operational excellence sits at the heart of the role. As these tools move from optional to essential in how people across the firm work, you will build the support models, documentation and handover processes that keep them reliable, secure and performing at a premium standard – and make sure that foundation is in place before pilots scale into production. Knowing when to document and delegate, and working seamlessly with our established Technology teams, will be key to your success.

We are looking for a motivated self-starter who is ambitious, ready to lead and excited to shape how a leading law firm puts AI to work.

Key responsibilities of this position include:

Collaboration

• Work in close partnership with the Practice Innovation Strategists and the Business Services Strategist at every stage, so that each product meets the needs of its end users and delivers value to clients and the firm.
• Consult the Strategists on roadmap, configuration, release and adoption decisions, treating product success as a shared outcome rather than a handover.

Product Ownership and Roadmap

• Define the stage gates and success criteria that move each product from pilot to production and, ultimately, into mainstream IT support.
• Maintain a living roadmap for our key legal AI and technology platforms, prioritizing the features, integrations and use cases that drive real adoption and value.
• Track vendor releases, assess their impact on firm workflows, and sequence rollouts with training and communications so new features land well.
• Act as the firm's primary product counterpart to vendor account and product teams, holding them to roadmap commitments and service standards.
• Regularly assess whether our existing tools remain the best fit for the job, and scan the market for emerging technology that could address new or unmet needs across our practices and business services functions.
• Develop a structured vendor review and intake process that makes diligence, security review and onboarding faster and more consistent.

Operations and Support

• Create a strong operating model for each product that defines user management, support, training and approval processes.
• Own product documentation end to end – configuration records, runbooks, user guides, knowledge base articles, known issues and escalation paths.
• Own problem management and vendor escalation for each product, in line with our Service Delivery standards.
• Encourage self-service training and enablement across all platforms through content delivered in our learning management system (LMS).
• Run the handover process for products moving into mainstream IT support, including knowledge transfer and acceptance criteria.

Requirements, Release and Integration

• Own the product backlog and requirements, working with the Practice Innovation Strategists, Business Services Strategist, Business Systems Analysis team and vendors to deliver agents, workflows, workspace configurations and prompt and playbook libraries for each practice and business services function.
• Set testing and acceptance standards, and sign off new vendor features in the firm's environment before they reach users, so each release is ready for use.
• Prioritize and coordinate integrations between systems, including API and MCP connections, with our Technology teams to maximize value and minimize risk.

Adoption, Value and Reporting

• Own per-tool adoption dashboards and the firm's time-and-value methodology, and produce the quarterly reporting firm leadership relies on.
• Set adoption targets by tool, practice, role, office and seniority, and work with the Strategists to design and implement plans that address stalling engagement before it shows up in the numbers.
• Turn usage data into a clear return-on-investment story and feed that insight back into the roadmap and firm engagement activities.

Governance and Security

• Coordinate Information Security and Information Governance reviews for AI platforms, keeping tools aligned with firm security, data retention and Office of the General Counsel requirements.
• Support the firm's agent governance model, including publication controls, access visibility and the intake route for shared agents.

Firm Enablement and Support

• Partner with the Practice Innovation Strategists and Business Services Strategist so configurations and templates reflect how each practice and department actually works and adapt to its specific needs.
• Run operating reviews and focus groups with the Strategists, Champions and IT counterparts, and maintain the shared knowledge assets they rely on, in partnership with our Business Systems Analysis team.

Qualifications (Experience, Knowledge, Skills & Abilities):

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
• Five or more years in legal technology, product management, innovation operations or practice technology, ideally in a law firm, legal department or legal technology vendor.
• A track record of owning technology products or platforms end to end in a professional services or enterprise setting, including roadmap, adoption and vendor management.
• Hands-on familiarity with legal or enterprise AI – such as generative AI platforms, document automation, contract review or deal management tools – with enough working knowledge to define requirements, assess vendor capabilities and test new features.
• Strong product management judgment, with the ability to prioritize effectively and measure and refine initiatives based on outcomes rather than activity.
• A track record of translating user needs into clear requirements, prioritizing a backlog and delivering through technical teams and vendors.
• Advanced data literacy, including the ability to build dashboards, interpret performance metrics, and clearly articulate and defend value models to key stakeholders.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to produce clear, practical documentation and reporting and to communicate effectively with attorneys, business services teams, vendors, IT professionals and firm leadership.
• Ability to work effectively in a fast-moving, evolving environment and to establish structure, processes and priorities when requirements are not yet fully defined.

Preferred

• Experience owning or managing products such as Harvey, NetDocuments, Legora, Copilot or comparable platforms in a law firm or legal technology setting.
• Familiarity with SharePoint, Power BI, Power Automate, ServiceNow and other service management and administration platforms.
• Familiarity with Information Security and Information Governance requirements for AI and cloud platforms.
• A background in knowledge management, template governance or legal project management.
• ITIL, PMP or Legal Project Management (LPM) certification.

The anticipated base salary range for this position in New York and Washington, DC is $115,000 to $175,000. 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.

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP participates in E-Verify for purposes of verifying employment eligibility