Knowledge & Innovation Paralegal (Real Estate)
At BCLP, we’ve built our firm on the foundations of thinking differently. Curious, inquisitive and unbound by tradition, we’re building change within our sector and beyond.
It starts with our people, which is why we need a Knowledge & Innovation Paralegal to join our team as one of three Knowledge & Innovation Paralegals located out of the London office. This role offers a unique opportunity to work closely with experienced Knowledge Lawyers, whilst supporting the implementation and development of legal technology solutions and enhancing the firm’s knowledge capabilities.
Position overview
- As a law firm, our greatest asset is the collective legal knowledge and expertise of our lawyers. One of the main purposes of the Global Knowledge Group is to capture, organise, disseminate and leverage BCLP’s knowledge internally.
- The Global Knowledge Group comprises three teams:
- A central Knowledge & AI Enablement team, responsible for the development and adoption of knowledge-related and AI technology used in the firm, as well as promoting a knowledge-sharing culture.
- A Knowledge & Innovation Lawyer team, embedded within our practice groups and giving specialised knowledge support to our lawyers across a range of legal disciplines, including Litigation & Investigations, Real Estate and Corporate & Finance Transactions.
- The Research, Information and Intelligence team, which provides librarian and analyst support services to our lawyers in all offices.
- This is a rare and exciting opportunity to see “behind-the-scenes” of a law firm, and get involved in a variety of knowledge & innovation projects.
- This role reports in to both the Lead Knowledge & Innovation Counsel for Real Estate, and the Senior Legal Technologist within the Knowledge and AI Enablement team, where the role will be located one day a week. This provides an opportunity to be deeply involved in a range of legal technology projects (including Generative AI).
- Four days a week, this role involves supporting Knowledge & Innovation Lawyers based in our Real Estate Department (RE) under the supervision of the Lead Knowledge & Innovation Counsel for RE. Knowledge & Innovation Lawyers in our RE department support a broad range of legal areas, including core (transactional) real estate; planning & zoning; and construction. This paralegal role will therefore gain a wide variety of experience.
What’s in it for you?
- The Knowledge Group is uniquely positioned in the firm, and works with a diverse range of departments and roles. You will gain exposure to all aspects of our business, and gain a great insight into how international law firms work.
- You will work alongside qualified lawyers, legal technologists/data architects, skilled project managers and legal researchers, and have the opportunity to develop a multidisciplinary skillset.
- You will gain valuable exposure to, and have the opportunity to work directly with, emerging technologies and tools (including GenAI) which are re-shaping the legal landscape.
Responsibilities
Your Real Estate responsibilities will include:
- Helping keep the group and its clients up-to-date on procedural, legal and market developments;
- Creating and amending Real Estate intranet pages and generally assisting with maintaining know-how resources/collections;
- Helping to organise and participating in Innovation/Technology trials and facilitating the use of AI and technology generally within RE, including our existing tech stack;
- Helping to run and organise internal RE technical and trainee training programmes and know-how sessions;
- Assisting with the creation of new templates, practice notes and standard advice, and updating knowledge content to reflect legal, procedural and market changes;
- Helping to prepare client briefing notes/guides, including assisting with blog processes and conflict checks;
- Helping to prepare internal legal updates;
- Helping to organise team meetings and facilitate knowledge sharing through the appropriate use of MS Teams and other platforms;
- Undertaking legal research; and
- Assisting on a range of other knowledge projects on-going in the RE Department from time to time.
Your Knowledge & AI Enablement responsibilities include:
- Assisting with the implementation and evaluation of new technology and tools;
- Working alongside lawyers to audit the knowledge content on our firm’s Knowledge systems, including BCLP Discover;
- Actively monitoring lawyer engagement with our systems/processes by collecting usage data and helping to create visualized data reports;
- Testing new Knowledge systems and providing feedback on functionality;
- Helping maintain Knowledge intranet pages and training resources; and
- Providing other support as needed to colleagues across the Knowledge Solutions team.
Essential experience and qualifications
To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required:
- Undergraduate degree, ideally in Law
- Strong interest in legal technology and innovation
- AI literacy, ideally with experience of prompt engineering
- Excellent IT skills including Excel and Word
- Genuine interest in data, information and knowledge management
- A great team player
- Willingness to learn, with a can-do attitude
- Ability to manage and prioritise numerous workstreams at the same time
- Strong written and oral communication skills
Travel
This position requires hybrid working with a minimum of four days working in the London office per week. Occasionally you might travel to our Manchester or Southampton offices instead of our London office.
At Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner we understand the value of a diverse workforce and we believe people perform at their best when they can truly be themselves at work. We aim to create an inclusive environment where all our employees are valued, motivated and able to be themselves. In order to provide the best possible service to our diverse client base, we are committed to recruiting, retaining, rewarding and developing our people with regard to their abilities and contributions and without reference to their background, gender, gender identity or expression, ethnic origin, age, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, political belief, disability or any other protected characteristic.
