Gibson Dunn is a leading global law firm, advising clients on significant transactions and disputes. Our exceptional teams craft and deploy creative legal strategies that are meticulously tailored to every matter, however complex or high-stakes. The firm’s work is distinguished by a unique combination of precision and vision.

, the Director of Legal Innovation and AI is a new role that reflects the firm's conviction that legal innovation is a strategic imperative that will reshape legal practice, client service, and firm competitiveness for the next decade. The role will serve as a firm legal innovation leader: executing the enterprise legal innovation strategy, governing the responsible deployment of AI across 2,200+ attorneys and all offices, building the firm's internal AI capability, and supporting Gibson Dunn’s authoritative voice on AI in legal practice. This role reports to the Chief Legal Operations Officer.

Responsibilities

include: Execute on Legal Innovation Strategy Execute on the evolving firmwide legal innovation and AI multi-year roadmap, approved by firm leadership, covering practice-group AI deployment, client-facing capabilities, operational AI, and AI talent development. Advise the CLOO on AI's strategic implications for firm competitiveness, pricing strategy, talent markets, and client expectations. Lead Legal Innovation and AI competitive intelligence: maintain awareness of how peer firms are deploying AI, and position Gibson Dunn accordingly.

Run the firm's AI Execution Committee, with representation from all business services teams. Legal Tech AI Vendor Leadership Own the firm's Legal Tech and AI vendor portfolio end-to-end: evaluation, selection, contract negotiation, performance governance, and sunset decisions across all tools, including generative AI platforms, contract analysis, and emerging entrants. Working with IT, maintain a rigorous AI evaluation framework, score vendors on accuracy, security architecture, confidentiality controls, attorney UX, integration capability, and total cost of ownership.

Working with Procurement, negotiate enterprise agreements at the executive level, secure preferential terms, security commitments, and roadmap influence with key Legal Tech and AI vendors. Build executive relationships with Legal Tech and AI platform leadership to give Gibson Dunn early access to new capabilities and a voice in product development. Manage the firm's AI tool budget and report to the CLOO on investment, ROI, and portfolio optimization on a quarterly basis.

AI Solutions Custom Development Lead the firm's AI Solutions function: overseeing development of custom tools, GibsonAI practice-group prompts, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines, integrations, and API-connected legal workflows.

Requirements

Partner with the Director of Data Services to ensure tools and solutions have access to clean, governed, AI-ready data infrastructure, including vector databases, embedding pipelines, and retrieval indexes. Evaluate advanced AI capabilities, including fine-tuning, custom model development, multi-agent architectures, and AI-native workflow automation, and provide executive-level recommendations. Legal Tech Governance, Ethics Risk Enforce the firm's AI Governance Framework.

Own the firm's ongoing compliance with bar association guidance on AI across all jurisdictions, maintaining a real-time compliance register and advising partners and associates on their professional responsibility obligations. Adoption, Training Culture Deliver upon the AI Institute literacy and adoption program, encompassing onboarding modules, practice-group workshops, CLE-eligible training, and ongoing competency development for attorneys at all levels.