Director of Knowledge Management

Haynes Boone is reimagining knowledge management for the AI era. Following a review of the Firm’s knowledge needs and priorities, the Director of Knowledge Management will carry forward a refreshed KM mandate: making the Firm’s institutional knowledge, matter experience, practice judgment, and reusable work product easier to find, govern, trust, and use in day-to-day legal work.

This is a build-and-lead role for a program at an important inflection point. The Director will shape the operating model for capturing, governing, maintaining, surfacing, and improving knowledge over time; manage a team of KM attorneys; and work with practice leaders and cross-functional teams rather than serve as the sole content creator. The mandate is practical and ambitious: reliable starting points, better findability, AI-ready content collections, lawyer workflow integration, and feedback loops that keep the program useful and current.

Essential Duties

KM Strategy and Roadmap Execution:

• Own and drive execution of the Firm's KM roadmap, including priorities, owners, timelines, and success measures.
• Lead and scale current and future KM attorneys, content specialists, and practice-aligned KM roles as the program grows.
• Translate practice pain points into practical KM projects, including precedent collections, playbooks, clause resources, checklists, matter profiles, and workflow improvements.
• Build the KM operating model, including central KM responsibilities, practice-aligned roles, contribution expectations, governance, escalation paths, and decision rights.

Knowledge Governance and AI-Ready Content:

• Define standards for KM assets, including authority, ownership, currency, applicability, metadata, permissions, and deprecation.
• Lead development of practice-approved "gold content" and AI-ready content collections that attorneys can trust and that approved AI tools can be used as reliable source material.
• Partner with IT, Data Strategy, Records, Research, and practice stakeholders on taxonomy, naming, document profiling, source control, and knowledge architecture.
• Coordinate with Risk, Records/Information Governance, GC, IT, and practice stakeholders to ensure KM assets and AI-ready content collections account for confidentiality, ethical walls, client-specific restrictions, retention requirements, and appropriate-use limitations.
• Design lightweight contribution and review processes that reduce attorney burden while improving capture of reusable work product, rationale, and matter insight.

Practice Alignment and Attorney Enablement:

• Partner with practice leaders, KM & Innovation Attorneys, partner champions, and attorney contributors to identify high-value knowledge needs, set priorities, and maintain practice engagement.
• Set methodology and quality standards for practice collections, playbooks, clause banks, precedent libraries, and AI-ready content collections.
• Support onboarding, lateral integration, and practice training through usable KM resources and clear guidance on where to find trusted materials.

Workflow, Technology, and Decision Support:

• Work directly with Practice Innovation product owners, engineers, IT, and vendors to shape, select, design, implement, and roll out knowledge capabilities embedded into search, drafting, AI, experience, and matter-management workflows.
• Define requirements for AI-enabled legal workspace, intranet, search, and retrieval capabilities, including how knowledge, experience data, expertise, and matter context should surface in lawyer workflows.
• Assess and prioritize AI and KM use cases based on the problem to solve, source quality, risk, governance needs, expected value, and attorney workflow fit.
• Capture decision-centered knowledge, including clause rationale, risk positions, playbook paths, matter context, and guidance on when particular approaches should or should not be used.

Measurement, Collaboration, and Sustainability:

• Define and report progress and impact using practical metrics and qualitative feedback, including adoption quality, content use, lawyer confidence, workflow improvement, and knowledge-gap trends.
• Coordinate reporting across Practice Innovation, IT, Data Strategy, Research & Competitive Intelligence, Business Development, Pricing, Risk, Talent, and practice leadership.

Reporting Relationship

The Director of Knowledge Management reports to the Director of Practice Innovation as part of the Practice Innovation function, which sponsors the Firm’s KM strategy and AI-enabled workflow agenda. The Director will be a firmwide leader and close partner to practice leadership, providing the methodology, governance, and coordination needed for practice-aligned KM resources and attorney contributors.

Qualifications:

Experience/Knowledge

• 8+ years of relevant experience in law firm knowledge management, practice management, or legal operations.
• Strong understanding of law firm workflows, document lifecycle, precedent management, attorney adoption, and client service expectations.
• Experience creating, governing, or improving reusable legal resources such as templates, precedents, clause banks, playbooks, checklists, matter profiles, or knowledge repositories.
• Ability to work credibly with partners, associates, administrative leaders, product owners, IT, data, research, risk, and business development stakeholders.
• Strong execution discipline, judgment, communication skills, and discretion in handling confidential information.
• Firmwide KM strategy and execution; knowledge governance; AI-ready knowledge architecture; practice alignment; workflow design; cross-functional collaboration; attorney enablement; change management; sound professional judgment.
• Preferred experience selecting, designing, implementing, or rolling out AI-enabled legal tools, document management systems, experience platforms, intranets, taxonomy, metadata, or legal workflow tools.
• Preferred experience leading change management, attorney enablement, training, or adoption programs.

Education

Bachelor’s degree in business, communications, technology, or JD preferred.

Physical Requirements

Must be able to move around the office up to 15% of the time to make copies, fax, file, etc. Stationery remains at least 85% of the time. This position operates computers and other office productivity machines (e.g., fax machine, copier, printer, etc.) on a regular basis. Occasionally required to move documents or files weighing up to 15 lbs. This position requires constant communication and exchange of information with the Firm attorneys, clients and staff. This position must be able to inspect and observe information on a computer screen at least 80% of the time.

Working Conditions

• Hybrid environment.
• Occasional extended hours beyond the normal schedule may be required to meet firm or client needs.

At Haynes and Boone, our people are the driving force behind our success. Because we value the role every individual plays in how we deliver exceptional legal services, we hire people who will contribute to our professional reputation, enhance client relationships and share in our success.

Haynes and Boone is one of the largest law firms in Dallas, and it continues to grow. In 2023, Haynes and Boone moved its headquarters to a new 27-story office tower in the Harwood District of uptown Dallas. Lawyers in our Dallas office serve all the firm’s practice and industry areas – including corporate, litigation, banking/finance, insurance law, healthcare law, labor and employment, estate planning, real estate, bankruptcy, intellectual property, white collar crime, and antitrust. Our Dallas lawyers are widely recognized in their practice areas in publications such as The Best Lawyers in America directory (Woodward/White, Inc.) and the Chambers USA legal directory (Chambers & Partners). This office attracts high-energy, technically proficient people who enjoy working in a collegial environment. We are committed to having an inclusive workforce that reflects our communities, and we seek highly motivated lawyers and staff who value our culture of respect and teamwork.