Director of Knowledge Management

Benesch Law•Chicago, IL

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Benesch is seeking a Director of Knowledge Management to build and lead the Firm's newly created knowledge management department. This role is a foundational component of the Innovation Department and will be responsible for transforming the Firm's knowledge management from a repository model to a modern, AI-enabled function. The Director will capture, curate, and surface the Firm's collective expertise at the point of need within practice workflows. This hands-on senior builder role will expand as the Firm's needs and capabilities mature. The Director owns the knowledge curation lifecycle, serves as the Innovation team's primary practice-facing touchpoint for understanding deep practice needs and translating them into scalable innovation priorities. The Director also partners with Information Governance and Data Governance on shared taxonomy and data classification and serves as the primary internal source of governed practice content.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree (JD strongly preferred)
At least eight years of experience in legal knowledge management, practice support, or a closely related function, ideally within a firm with a mature knowledge management practice.
Demonstrated experience launching knowledge assets that are used in practice.
Practical fluency with document management systems, such as iManage or NetDocuments, enterprise search, and at least one modern AI or retrieval platform.
Working familiarity with taxonomy, metadata, and content-governance frameworks.
Experience translating client requirements into knowledge management priorities and standards.
Judgment to operate across a multi-stakeholder environment, including Practice Group Leadership, Risk, Information Governance, IT, Marketing/BD, and Finance.
Credibility to partner effectively with practicing lawyers.
Leadership capacity to hire, develop, and manage a growing team as the function matures.
Superior communication, organizational, relationship-building, and problem-solving skills.
High degree of discretion and sound judgment.
Commitment to client service.

Responsibilities

Design and lead the evolution of knowledge management from a simple repository model towards an active, workflow-embedded and AI-empowered function that surfaces precedent, expertise, and institutional insight at the point of need.
Assess current knowledge management maturity across practice groups and develop a sequenced plan with defined deliverables and success criteria.
Prioritize the knowledge management roadmap using client-demand signals to focus KM effort on client impact and align knowledge management priorities with the Firm's innovation portfolio.
Present knowledge management priorities, progress, and outcomes to the Firm leadership.
Partner with Practice Group leaders to identify knowledge gaps and prioritize curation across practice areas.
Establish quality gates and a governed-content lifecycle covering ingestion, classification, review, and retirement of knowledge assets.
Work with the Data team to define, enforce, and maintain data and taxonomy standards, including practice-specific experience data taxonomies and related processes.
Ensure that all knowledge management initiatives operate within Firm compliance requirements, retention policies, and client-imposed restrictions.
Lead prioritization to connect curated knowledge assets to the Firm's AI platforms, automation tools, enterprise search, and other practice technologies.
Coordinate with Risk & Information Governance to enforce privilege and client-restriction controls within the retrieval layer.
Partner with the Change & Enablement Lead, Professional Development, practicing attorneys, and practice groups to drive adoption of knowledge resources and processes.
Define and report outcome metrics, including usage, retrieval quality, behavior change, and workflow impact.
Connect knowledge management outcomes to client-visible measures such as turnaround time, consistency of work product, and responsiveness.
Support pitches, proposals, and client presentations with the Firm's experience data and knowledge assets in partnership with Marketing and Business Development.
Launch the Knowledge Management function as a hands-on senior leader and build it out over time, hiring and developing resources as the function scales.
Provide direction, mentorship, and performance oversight to knowledge management personnel as the team grows.
Operate as a collaborative partner across Practice Groups, IT, Risk, Information Governance, Finance, Marketing/BD, and Professional Development.
Perform other duties as assigned.