Growth & Future of Legal Business Lead

Purpose

The Growth & Future of Legal Business Lead is a senior and highly distinctive role within the Learning & Development function responsible for designing and facilitating coordinated, portfolio-focused working sessions that bring together Partners across practice groups and regions with key stakeholders including AI specialists, Knowledge Lawyers, etc., to navigate the most strategically significant questions facing the firm's legal business.

Working in close collaboration with a pool of L&D Managers and Advisors as well as key external stakeholders, the role leads the firm's approach to enabling structured cross-functional dialogue on AI adoption, client strategy, pricing, utilisation and the future shape of the legal business.

Working in design and delivery partnership with the Director of Learning and Development, the role develops a point of view as well as curating and integrating high-quality external inputs – including market intelligence, academic research and sector expertise – into facilitated internal conversations that drive clarity, alignment and informed decision-making.

The Growth & Future of Legal Business Lead works closely with the Director of Learning & Development, Partners, the Knowledge & Information function, and other Centres of Excellence to actively develop and deliver a structured learning and development offering that supports the firm to develop a coherent and commercially rigorous approach to the future of legal business.

Your key responsibilities

Cross-Practice and Cross-Regional Working Sessions

• Design, develop and lead high-quality, portfolio-focused working sessions across practice groups and regions, bringing together Partners, Associates, Knowledge Lawyers and AI & tech specialists in structured, facilitated conversations about how we shape the firm’s legal future.

• Ensure that working sessions are purposefully designed to foster coordinated, cross-functional dialogue, moving beyond siloed practice group conversations to build a shared, firm-wide understanding of the strategic choices and trade-offs involved in areas such as AI adoption, client strategy, pricing and the growth of the right work from the right clients.

• Develop a clear and well-governed programme architecture for cross-practice and cross-regional working sessions, ensuring that the portfolio of sessions is coherent, cumulative and designed to build shared strategic capability over time rather than to deliver isolated, one-off interventions.

• Work closely with L&D Managers and Advisors to coordinate the scheduling, design, facilitation and follow-up of working sessions across the firm's global offices, ensuring consistency of quality and approach whilst allowing for appropriate practice group and regional adaptation.

• Engage Partners and Practice Group Heads in the design and sponsorship of working sessions, ensuring that the programme is well-connected to live business priorities and actively championed at the most senior levels of the firm.

• Develop a publishable point of view on how professional services firms can grow and what the future of legal businesses might look like.

AI, Technology and the Future of Legal Work

• Act as the firm's primary learning and development point of expertise on embedding AI, efficient use of legal technology and exploring the future of legal work, designing and facilitating working sessions that help Partners, associates and business teams to develop a sophisticated, commercially grounded understanding of how AI and technology are reshaping the legal business model, working closely with the AI team.

• Curate and integrate high-quality external inputs – including market intelligence, academic research, sector expertise and practitioner insight – into the firm's internal working sessions, ensuring that conversations are informed by the best available external thinking without outsourcing the firm's strategic reflection to external providers.

• Work closely with the firm's Knowledge & Information function, AI specialists and technologists to ensure that working sessions are technically credible, practically relevant and well-grounded in the firm's own AI and technology strategy and roadmap.

• Design facilitated sessions that help practice groups and regions to develop a clear and shared view of how AI adoption affects their specific client portfolios, work types, pricing models and utilisation – enabling informed, practice-specific strategic choices.

• Monitor developments in AI, legal technology and the broader legal services market on an ongoing basis, translating emerging insights into timely and relevant working session content that keeps the firm's conversations at the frontier of strategic thinking.

Coordinated Discussion of Strategic Trade-offs

• Design and facilitate structured conversations that enable Partners and senior leaders to engage rigorously and constructively with the strategic trade-offs inherent in the firm's business model – including the relationship between client strategy delivery, AI tokenisation, utilisation, pricing and profitability.

• Develop simulations, live immersive real plays, facilitation frameworks and decision-support tools that help practice groups and regions to surface, articulate and work through complex trade-offs in a structured and commercially disciplined way, moving conversations from abstract strategic debate to clear, actionable conclusions.

• Ensure that trade-off discussions are conducted at the right level of granularity – connecting firm-wide strategic priorities to practice group and matter-level realities – and that the outputs of these conversations are captured, synthesised and made available to relevant senior stakeholders in a clear and usable format.

• Work in close partnership with the firm's Finance, Pricing, Knowledge & Information, Business Management, BDM and AI functions to ensure that trade-off discussions are grounded in accurate data, sound commercial analysis and a clear understanding of the firm's strategic direction.

• Use the outputs of trade-off discussions to inform the broader L&D offer, identifying capability gaps and development needs that should be addressed through structured learning interventions across the firm.

Portfolio-Focused Programme Design with External Inputs

• Design and manage a coherent, portfolio-focused programme of working sessions and learning interventions, ensuring that the overall offer is strategically sequenced, cumulative in its impact and designed to build lasting capability rather than to deliver one-off events.

• Identify, commission and integrate high-quality external inputs – including guest speakers, sector experts, academic researchers and market intelligence providers – into the firm's working sessions, ensuring that external perspectives are curated rigorously and add genuine strategic value to internal conversations.

• Develop a clear framework for evaluating the quality and impact of external inputs, ensuring that the firm's investment in external expertise is well-targeted, commercially justified and consistently excellent in its contribution to the programme.

• Ensure that the portfolio of working sessions and learning interventions is well-governed, with clear objectives, participant frameworks, evaluation mechanisms and reporting processes in place to demonstrate impact and support continuous improvement.

Providing Strategic Direction

• Provide clear strategic direction to the pool of L&D Managers and Advisors working across the growth and future of legal business portfolio, fostering a high-performing, collaborative and a team culture of continuous improvement.

• Set clear priorities and quality standards aligned to this book of work.

• Act as a coach and mentor to L&D Managers and Advisors, supporting their professional development and helping them to grow their capability in facilitation, learning design and stakeholder management.

Stakeholder Engagement and Governance

• Build and maintain strong, trusted relationships with senior stakeholders across the firm – including Partners, Counsel, Knowledge Lawyers, AI specialists, Finance and Pricing colleagues – acting as the primary point of expertise and accountability for all growth and future of legal business learning activity.

• Represent the Growth and Future of Legal Business programme in relevant governance forums, leadership meetings and cross-functional working groups, providing regular updates on programme design, delivery, impact and continuous improvement activity.

Programme Evaluation and Continuous Improvement

• Use evaluation data and stakeholder feedback to drive a culture of continuous improvement across the portfolio, regularly reviewing and updating session content, design and facilitation approaches in response to business needs and emerging best practice.

• Monitor external developments in AI, legal technology, legal business models and professional development practice to ensure that the firm's programme remains innovative, evidence-based and at the frontier of strategic thinking in the legal sector.
• Significant experience in a senior learning and development, strategy, knowledge management or organisational development role, with a proven track record of designing and facilitating high-quality, strategically significant working sessions or programmes within a global professional services firm, law firm or similarly complex, high-performance environment.

• Demonstrated ability to set clear strategic direction, as well as exceptional delivery, while fostering a high-performing and collaborative team culture.

• Demonstrate understanding of the strategic challenges and opportunities facing global law firms – including the implications of AI, legal technology, evolving client expectations, pricing dynamics and the future of legal work – with the ability to translate this understanding into high-impact facilitated conversations and learning interventions.

• Demonstrated experience of designing and facilitating complex, multi-stakeholder working sessions and strategic dialogue processes, with the ability to hold a room of senior Partners and specialists in a credible, commercially grounded and intellectually rigorous way.

• Experience of curating and integrating external expertise and market intelligence into internal strategic conversations, with a strong network of relevant external contacts and a clear understanding of how to commission and deploy external input effectively.

• Demonstrated ability to build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders across a matrixed, international organisation, with the ability to influence without authority and navigate complex organisational dynamics at the most senior levels of the firm.

• Experience of working in close partnership with Knowledge & Information, Finance, Pricing, Strategy and other Centres of Excellence to ensure that learning and development activity is well-integrated with the broader business agenda.

Qualifications

• Educated to degree level or equivalent, preferably in Law, Business, Strategy, Organisational Psychology, Human Resources or a related discipline.

• A qualification in learning and development, facilitation, coaching or organisational development (e.g. CIPD Level 7, IAF Certified Professional Facilitator or equivalent) is highly desirable.

• A postgraduate qualification in law, business or strategy is advantageous.
• Membership of a relevant professional body (e.g. CIPD, IAF) is advantageous.

Additional Skills

• Exceptional facilitation and convening skills, with the ability to design and lead complex, high-stakes working sessions with senior legal audiences in a way that is intellectually rigorous, commercially grounded and practically productive.

• Deep understanding of AI, legal technology and the future of legal business models, with the ability to engage credibly with specialists across knowledge management, technology, pricing and strategy.

• Ability to use learning data, evaluation insights and business intelligence to support decisions and communicate findings in a compelling and accessible way to a range of audiences, including the most senior levels of firm leadership.

• Excellent interpersonal and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to build trusted relationships, influence without authority and navigate complex organisational dynamics across a global professional services environment.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to produce high-quality programme documentation, briefing materials, impact reports and presentations for senior audiences.

• A collaborative and proactive working style, with sound commercial judgement and the ability to balance strategic thinking with hands-on delivery across a complex and fast-moving environment.

• Commitment to inclusion and diversity, with a demonstrable understanding of how to embed equitable practices into programme design and facilitation.

The Team

The Learning & Development function sits within the broader People function and is responsible for designing and delivering the firm's global learning strategy, ensuring that colleagues at every stage of their career have access to high-quality, evidence-based development opportunities that build capability, support career progression and enable the firm to perform at its best. This spans early careers and trainee development, associate and business teams development frameworks, leadership and management capability, inclusion and high-performance culture, and digital and technology-enabled learning. By working in close partnership with the People function, other CoEs and senior business stakeholders across the firm's global offices, the L&D team plays a central role in shaping the culture, capability and long-term performance of the firm — contributing directly to the delivery of the firm's people strategy and its broader strategic ambitions.

This role will likely require global travel.

What sets us apart at Linklaters

At Linklaters, we offer a truly global work experience and the opportunity to be involved in strategic projects that drive innovation and shape the future of our business. We belong to a firm that embodies its corporate social, environmental, and governance responsibility commitments. We remain focused on talent and having the best people, which will result in a diverse workforce. Having got the best people, we want them to feel included, valued, and respected so they can perform at their best. We advocate a speak-up culture to empower our people in sharing their voices and an open-door policy to ensure they are listened to. We invest in custom-fit career paths for our people in line with their talents and aspirations. We provide agile working solutions to meet the changing needs of our people and our business. We are committed to people-first relationships based on mutual trust, respect, and appreciation. We support the health and wellbeing of our people, providing a safe space to talk about emotions and mental health with access to expert advice as needed. We invest in developing leaders of the future who demonstrate emotional intelligence and a passion to discover, coach, and develop the talents of others.

Technical Skills:

This list of duties and responsibilities above is not exhaustive.  It is intended to describe the general content of, and requirements for, the performance of this job. As such, the role may also include the undertaking of additional tasks as required.