Head of Legal Training

35 hours per week, 9:30am to 5:30pm but additional hours may be required. We are happy to consider agile and flexible working patterns. Our approach to hybrid working allows for up to 40% of time working from home and 60% working in the office, please contact a member of the recruitment team to discuss further., The Head of Legal Learning is a strategic role, working closely with the Global Chief People Officer, Global Chief Learning Officer, Global Head of Talent Management, the firm’s partners, Heads of Knowledge, Knowledge Lawyers, and Practice Group HR Business Partners, lawyers and other Business Team departments. The role is responsible for championing and driving the implementation of the firm’s practice-specific skills., * Build on existing practice-specific training to set a regional and global strategy for our practice area training. Practice areas focus primarily on Corporate and Finance, Litigation, Global Regulation and IPMT. Work with key stakeholders (e.g. practice area leaders, subject matter experts and knowledge lawyers) to ensure our lawyers have access to best in class legal training, and to leverage the firm’s knowledge and learning to support the firm’s strategic objectives

• Collaborate with HL Learn, Heads of Knowledge, and Knowledge Lawyers to ensure effective deployment and improving and maximize the sharing of legal and practice-specific training resources across the practices

• Manage the Legal Learning team, including day-to-day needs, development, and recruitment; inspire and lead the Legal Training Managers and Legal Training Coordinators through clear articulation of the legal learning practice strategy and their role in fulfilling the strategy

• Work with Information Technology teams to ensure our e-learning and learning management systems and tools are fit for purpose, keep pace with emerging technologies (e.g. AI), and enable us to deliver the legal training programs and processes we need

• Work closely with key stakeholders to ensure that our strategic legal practice-specific learning and objectives are reflected in and consistent with the firm’s approach to changing hybrid working practices, workplace design, DEI, and lawyer career path initiatives

• Keep up-to-date with training and learning trends, law firm business trends, e-learning technology and hybrid working trends, and legal developments; integrate key practice skills and expertise needed for the lawyers of the future into training

• Drive cultural change across the firm in line with HL Learn principles, embed a culture of commitment to legal education excellence, curiosity, continuous learning, innovation, engagement, and exceptional client service delivery

• Monitor uptake of legal learning opportunities and analyze the quality of legal/practice training in order to drive our legal learning strategy and program development

• Participate in the annual budgeting process, and manage the Legal Learning budget.

Specific duties or responsibilities may be reviewed from time to time to reflect changes in personnel and management structure, staff location or services.

All members of the firm participate in our Responsible Business program.

Qualifications & Training

• The successful candidate should be able to demonstrate previous experience of working in a similar role in a law firm or other professional services entity. Your career will have been characterised by clear patterns of success and achievement

• Lawyer or a background in legal learning with an understanding of practice-specific legal training and the ability to work with subject matter experts across practices.

• A background in technology tools to build a hybrid learning approach

• A credible self-starter with a demonstrable track record of delivering operational success in this area

General Attributes

• Able to think strategically and translate strategy into deliverable action, understanding and working with local variations to the global legal learning strategy

• Able to lead a regionally dispersed team, while also working collaboratively and collegiately in a globally distributed management team

• Able to build relationships with and take direction from functional leadership and senior stakeholders, understanding cultural differences

• Able to motivate and persuade lawyers to contribute to legal training, and to adhere to legal learning processes

• Able to help deliver or facilitate legal learning sessions and workshops

• Able to demonstrate mastery of both the practice and business of law, and identify new areas of opportunity for legal training to help solve business challenges or improve client service

• Strong understanding of how to adapt learning programs for different learners/environments

• Strong intellectual capacity with the ability to apply new ideas

• Strong leadership, project management, and change management skills, and an ability to build productive relationships

• Exceptional communication and influencing skills; able to operate with credibility at partnership level

• Excellent team player – collaborative, accountable, challenging

• Commercially minded, action-focused, pragmatic.

Agile Working Statement

Our goal is to embed flexibility across our business by giving everyone the opportunity to work in an agile way, whether as a regular pattern or on an ad hoc basis, and we will be happy to discuss this further.