Director of Knowledge Management and Practice Technology

Job Description

Covington's Knowledge Management (KM) and Practice Technology function exists to capture, structure, govern, and operationalize the firm's institutional knowledge and practice technology in ways that positively impact the organization, the business, internal ways of working, and client service delivery. As AI tools become increasingly available across the legal industry, the firm's durable advantage will depend on its ability to turn accumulated legal expertise, matter experience, precedents, playbooks, taxonomies, and practice data into reusable knowledge assets that can be applied consistently and at scale.

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The Director of KM and Practice Technology will report to the Senior Director of AI and lead the firm's KM and Practice Technology team, supervising practice-aligned KM and Practice Technology Managers across Corporate, Litigation, Regulatory, and White Collar. The Director will work with firm practice groups to identify knowledge management and practice technology opportunities, deploy solutions to legal practices, and ensure that successful approaches are proliferated to all relevant practices throughout the firm.

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The Director will partner closely with the Director of Applied AI to ensure that knowledge assets, taxonomies, matter intelligence, and practice data sources are structured for AI readiness and downstream consumption by Applied AI workflows. This role will serve as a senior practice-facing leader responsible for transforming KM from a passive repository function into strategic infrastructure for legal service delivery, attorney leverage, and firmwide innovation.

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Duties and Responsibilities:

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• Lead and develop the KM and Practice Technology Manager team across Corporate, Litigation, Regulatory, and White Collar practice areas, establishing clear delivery expectations and a high-performance, learning-oriented, practice-facing culture.
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• Define and maintain firmwide standards for KM and practice technology, including taxonomies, metadata, matter profiling, precedent management, structured content design, and AI ready knowledge assets.
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• Partner with practice group leadership, partners, attorneys, and business professionals to identify, prioritize, and sequence KM and practice technology opportunities that improve matter execution, attorney leverage, internal ways of working, and client service delivery.
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• Oversee the design, deployment, adoption, and ongoing maintenance of KM and practice technology solutions, including precedent libraries, clause banks, brief banks, regulatory trackers, investigation playbooks, matter intelligence repositories, templates, checklists, taxonomies, and other structured knowledge resources.
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• Ensure that KM resources are not merely stored, but actively operationalized within legal workflows, including drafting, diligence, discovery, regulatory analysis, investigations, matter strategy, client reporting, and related practice-specific processes.
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• Partner with the Director of Applied AI to ensure that AI-enabled workflows are grounded in high quality, well-curated, responsibly governed knowledge content and practice-area data sources.
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• Establish governance frameworks for the lifecycle of knowledge assets – including creation, contribution, review, maintenance, retirement, access control, and responsible use – with appropriate attention to privilege, confidentiality, professional responsibility, and firm risk standards.
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• Identify opportunities for legal process automation and knowledge-enabled workflow improvement, translating practice needs into scalable solutions in partnership with Applied AI, IT, and practice stakeholders.
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• Stay actively informed of developments in knowledge management, legal practice technology, legal AI, information architecture, and law firm innovation, and proactively identify opportunities for enhancements, pilots, and scalable practice solutions.
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• Drive adoption of these solutions through training, demos, office hours, communications, practice engagement, and sustained enablement, partnering with practice group leadership, Applied AI, Learning & Development, Communications, and other internal teams.
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• Establish and report on adoption, quality, coverage, usage, and value metrics for KM and practice technology initiatives, surfacing actionable insights to the Senior Director of AI, CIO, practice leadership, and firm leadership as appropriate.
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• Coordinate with Information Technology, Information Security, Risk, the Office of General Counsel, Research Services, Learning & Development, and other business services teams to ensure KM and practice technology solutions are secure, sustainable, integrated, and aligned with firm standards.
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• Evaluate and help manage third-party KM, legal technology, workflow automation, and content platforms, advising on build-versus-buy decisions and ensuring selected tools meet the firm’s quality, usability, governance, integration, and security requirements.
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• Serve as a credible senior point of contact for partners, practice group leaders, attorneys, and business professionals on the firm’s KM and practice technology capabilities, communicating the strategic value of structured institutional knowledge in terms that resonate with legal and business audiences.
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• Foster a culture in which attorneys and business professionals contribute to, maintain, and draw from shared institutional knowledge, helping the firm bring the full depth of its experience to each client matter.
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Qualifications:

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• Minimum of 8 years of transferable professional experience, with a meaningful portion in knowledge management, legal technology, practice innovation, practice support, legal operations, or related delivery roles within a law firm, professional services organization, or comparable environment, including demonstrated experience leading teams and interfacing with senior leadership.
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• Track record of designing, deploying, and scaling knowledge management, legal technology, practice technology, or workflow solutions with measurable adoption and impact.
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• Strong understanding of how legal workflows, structured content, taxonomies, matter intelligence, and practice data can be organized to support AI-enabled legal work, improve client service delivery, and translate practice needs into KM and practice technology solutions.
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• Demonstrated initiative and bias for action, with the willingness to own outcomes through to delivery and the judgment to know when to ship, when to iterate, and when to escalate.
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• Genuine intellectual curiosity, with a habit of staying ahead of developments in KM, legal technology, AI, and law firm innovation, and a track record of bringing fresh ideas and approaches forward to leadership.
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• Solution- and objective-oriented mindset, with the discipline to anchor every project to a clear business, practice, or client-service outcome and the persistence to drive it through to adoption.
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• Strong listener: genuinely curious about how attorneys work and what clients need, with the ability to surface root problems before proposing solutions and the patience to push past the first ask to understand the underlying objective.
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• Comfortable as an educator and change agent: able to demonstrate, train, and bring along attorneys and business professionals at all levels of technical fluency, with patience for the realities of change management in a partnership.
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• Demonstrated ability to build trusted relationships across practices and functions – with attorneys, business professionals, technology partners, research professionals, risk stakeholders, operations teams, and firm leadership – and to operate as a credible cross-practice and cross-functional connector.
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• Ability to navigate and influence at all levels of the organization, with the confidence to advocate for disciplined knowledge practices, structured content, and practice technology solutions, and the credibility to earn partner trust.
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• Strong understanding of content governance, information architecture, metadata, taxonomy design, knowledge lifecycle management, and the operational requirements needed to maintain high-quality institutional knowledge over time.
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• Strong organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple concurrent priorities, drive projects through to completion, and lead effectively and with professionalism in a fast-paced environment.
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• Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to communicate complex KM, technology, and AI-readiness concepts in terms that resonate with legal and business audiences and to demonstrate a grasp of the strategic intent of a subject matter.
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• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree in a relevant legal, information science, technology, business, or related discipline preferred.
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Status: Exempt

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Reports To: Senior Director of AI

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Workplace Type: Remote (must be available for occasional travel to one of our office locations in the United States)

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Salary range is $290,000 – $371,000 depending on experience and location.

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Covington & Burling LLP is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in any aspect of employment, including hiring, salary, promotion, discipline, termination, and benefits, on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, age, marital status, sexual orientation, family responsibility, disability (including physical handicap), or any other improper criterion.

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Note to California based candidates only: Covington will consider qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records for employment in accordance with applicable laws, including the California Fair Chance Act, the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, and the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.