Innovation Lawyer in Manchester

The role Purpose of the role: Gateley Legal are creating two new Innovation Lawyer roles to help our legal teams make the most of emerging legal technology and AI enabled tools. These roles will work closely with our Knowledge, Innovation and IT teams, acting as a bridge between them and technology specialists to identify, assess and embed legal technologies. You’ll play an important part in helping us understand where technology can genuinely make a difference to how we work – and supporting colleagues to adopt new tools in a way that feels practical, achievable and aligned to our day-to-day practice. This is a collaborative role focused on bringing people together, identifying emerging legal opportunities, and helping us all work smarter with confidence.

Two roles are proposed:

• One with a background in a transactional practice area (for example real estate, corporate or banking);
• One with a background in a contentious practice area (for example litigation).

Key responsibilities:

• Work with Knowledge, Innovation and IT to explore how legal tech, AI and process improvements can support our lawyers, enhance quality, and deliver an even better service for clients.
• Translate between legal and technology teams, ensuring our requirements and ways of working are clearly understood.
• Review proposed tools from a lawyer’s perspective – considering practical use, workflows and risk.
• Support pilots, testing, rollouts and embedding of new tools, including by helping create training and easy to-use guidance.
• Work with colleagues across a range of practice areas to understand their challenges, identify opportunities, and help remove barriers to change.
• Provide clear, constructive feedback to Knowledge, Innovation and IT colleagues to support continuous improvement.

Nature of the role: This is a non-fee earning Innovation Lawyer opportunity. You’ll work across multiple practice areas building strong relationships with teams across the Group. The focus is on helping colleagues identify and embed solutions, rather than developing software or IT delivery.

The team You will join our growing innovation capability as part of our Knowledge team, working closely with colleagues across Innovation, IT, and our legal teams nationwide. Further details will be shared as the structure develops.

The person Required experiences and skills:

• Ideally 4+ PQE as a practising lawyer in a reputable law firm, with experience in either a transactional or contentious practice area.
• A solid understanding of how legal work is delivered in practice, including workflows, matter lifecycles and lawyer incentives.
• Credibility with lawyers and the ability to influence and engage across different seniority levels and practice areas.
• Evidence of engagement in legal technology, innovation and the impact of AI on legal service delivery.
• Ability to work collaboratively with non-lawyers, including IT, innovation and project teams, consultancies and business support.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain technical or abstract concepts in practical, lawyer focused terms.

This role would suit someone who will thrive improving the way we work through an innovation technology perspective, supporting colleagues, and ensuring forward thinking ideas become reality.

About Us The benefits With support, coaching and feedback from some of the most engaging colleagues around our great development and progression opportunities will reward your commitment and loyalty. We offer a competitive remuneration package where you'll be rewarded for your individual performance with an opportunity to receive an annual bonus. In addition, we have a wide range of learning and development opportunities via our Learn platform to develop new skills and progress your career. Our My Flex comprehensive rewards package includes options covering annual leave (and the benefit of purchasing extra days), cycle to work, critical illness benefit, employee assistance programme, group personal pension, health care, season ticket loan and many more benefits (grade dependent).

Finally, with Perks At Work/Home you can select a host of retail benefits that suit your needs alongside a Community Online Academy, free courses for all from fitness to coding to languages to hip hop dance.

We are Gateley We are forward thinking and straight talking, our approach is to find solutions to the problems that our clients face. Gateley is a legal and professional services group, we are a group of formidable experts in all areas of law and business. Passionate problem solvers, we get our kicks from finding the right answers and getting our legal and business clients where they need to be. We support more than 5,700 active clients, ranging from FTSE 100 companies to private individuals, in the UK and beyond.

Being part of Gateley is not just about the expertise that you bring; it's about attitude too. The 'Gateley Story' is the story of our people and our culture. It is what has got us to where we are today as a successful business and it's the driving force behind the Gateley Team Spirit and the values that have shaped it. We have a set of shared internal values that capture what the Gateley Team Spirit is and this includes five elements that bind us all together as one Gateley: Ambitious for Success, Forward Thinking, Room to Breathe, Trusted to Do and Working Together. Every year across the group, we recognise members of our team that have gone and above and beyond and have lived these shared values. They are recognised at our annual Gateley Team Spirit awards.

Diversity, inclusion and well being Diversity, inclusion and well being is an important part of Gateley's culture and values. We recruit talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures, providing equal opportunities for all to join our team regardless of age, sex, race, sexual orientation, disability, or culture. We create an exciting and rewarding place to work that aims to fulfil everyone's potential and together to achieve personal and business goals. We offer flexible working patterns to help our staff achieve a good work/ life balance and we encourage candidates seeking flexibility in their next role to apply for any of our vacancies. We are proud to have been recognised by The Law Society as gold standard for our Diversity and Inclusion Charter and to be Stonewall Diversity Champions.

Additional Information If you are successful in receiving an offer of a role with our company a variety of pre-employment screening checks will be completed. Our screening checks can include but are not limited to your eligibility to work, professional and academic qualifications, any criminal records, your financial stability and references from previous employers. The screening that takes place will be relevant to your role and will vary from role to role.