Director of Knowledge Management

Who We Ar

At Benesch we pride ourselves on exceeding expectations and building trust not only with our clients but with our employees - Benesch's #1 asset. Committed to providing not only the highest level of legal service to our clients, Benesch also aspires to create a positive work environment for our employees. Our Firm continues to earn placement on Chicago and Cleveland's Top Workplaces list, along with Cleveland's NorthCoast 99 Top Workplaces rankings. We also continue to advance on the AmLaw 125 list, placing us among the top 125 law firms in the country.

Benesch is proud to be recognized for being a Firm that attracts and retains top talent - making Benesch a great place to work. We offer a hybrid schedule, career development and growth, transparent and visible leadership teams, and a place where diversity, equity and inclusion is celebrated. In addition, the Firm offers a full array of benefits which can be viewed at www.mybeneschbenefits.com.

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We are one of the fastest growing firms in the nation, and have offices in Chicago, Columbus, San Francisco, New York City, and Wilmington. We continue to expand our geographic footprint and value the talent that comprises each of our locations. If you are someone who champions a First in Service approach and are ready to be part of an exciting and growing Firm, we would invite you to apply to join our team.

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Benesch is proud to announce the opening for a Director of Knowledge Management in our Chicago office! This position is hybrid and has work from home flexibility.

Position Summary:

Are you searching for the challenge of building, establishing and creating, from the ground up, a cutting-edge knowledge management department?  Are you looking for an opportunity to work with and report directly to C-Suites to see this vision of growth take shape?  Have you been looking for an opportunity to tie your knowledge management experience to assessing and meeting the demands of an organization's clientele? Then our opening for a Director of Knowledge Management is the opportunity you've been waiting for! This role is for the individual who is looking to own the full lifecycle and development of Benesch's newly created knowledge management department and help it climb the AmLaw ladder.

The Director of Knowledge Management will build, lead, and scale the Firm's Knowledge Management function. As a foundational component of the Innovation Department, Knowledge Management will serve as the institutional infrastructure that makes practice transformation, responsible AI deployment, and legal workflow redesign possible. The Director is charged with moving the Firm from a repository model of knowledge management to a modern, AI-enabled knowledge function that captures, curates, and surfaces 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 of Knowledge Management 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.

Essential Functions

Knowledge Management Strategy & Client-Driven Prioritization

1. 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.
2. Assess current knowledge management maturity across practice groups and develop a sequenced plan with defined deliverables and success criteria.
3. 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.
4. Present knowledge management priorities, progress, and outcomes to the Firm leadership.

Curation and Data

1. Partner with Practice Group leaders to identify knowledge gaps and prioritize curation across practice areas.
2. Establish quality gates and a governed-content lifecycle covering ingestion, classification, review, and retirement of knowledge assets.
3. Work with the Data team to define, enforce, and maintain data and taxonomy standards. This includes practice-specific experience data taxonomies and related processes that reflect each practice's needs, terminology, and workflows and improve the surfacing of institutional knowledge.
4. Ensure that all knowledge management initiatives operate within Firm compliance requirements, retention policies, and client-imposed restrictions from the outset.

AI Enablement & Retrieval Foundation

1. Lead prioritization to connect curated knowledge assets to the Firm's AI platforms, automation tools, enterprise search, and other practice technologies so attorneys can access governed, source-of-truth content directly within the tools and workflows they use.
2. Coordinate with Risk & Information Governance to enforce privilege and client-restriction controls within the retrieval layer where appropriate.

Adoption, Measurement & Partnership

1. Partner with the Change & Enablement Lead, Professional Development, practicing attorneys, and practice groups to drive adoption of knowledge resources and processes, ensure assets reflect how lawyers actually work and are integrated into daily workflows.
2. Define and report outcome metrics, including usage, retrieval quality, behavior change, and workflow impact, as part of the innovation portfolio's measurement framework.
3. Connect knowledge management outcomes to client-visible measures such as turnaround time, consistency of work product, and responsiveness, and incorporate those measures into how initiatives are selected and evaluated.
4. Support pitches, proposals, and client presentations with the Firm's experience data and knowledge assets in partnership with Marketing and Business Development.

Team Leadership & Development

1. 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.
2. Provide direction, mentorship, and performance oversight to knowledge management personnel as the team grows.
3. Operate as a collaborative partner across Practice Groups, IT, Risk, Information Governance, Finance, Marketing/BD, and Professional Development.

Additional Responsibilities

1. Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications:

The Director of Knowledge Management should have a bachelor's degree, with a JD strongly preferred with 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. This role requires the ability to move beyond the traditional knowledge management repository model toward an active, technology-enabled, workflow-embedded knowledge function, including demonstrated experience launching knowledge assets that are used in practice. The Director should have practical fluency with document management systems, such as iManage or NetDocuments, enterprise search, and at least one modern AI or retrieval platform, along with working familiarity with taxonomy, metadata, and content-governance frameworks. The role also requires experience translating client requirements into knowledge management priorities and standards; the judgment to operate across a multi-stakeholder environment, including Practice Group Leadership, Risk, Information Governance, IT, Marketing/BD, and Finance; and the credibility to partner effectively with practicing lawyers. The Director should also have the leadership capacity to hire, develop, and manage a growing team as the function matures. The role requires superior communication, organizational, relationship-building, and problem-solving skills, a high degree of discretion, sound judgment, and a commitment to client service.

The salary range for this position is $195K to $270K.

Please note that quoted salary ranges are based on Benesch's good faith belief at the time of the job posting and are not a guarantee of what final salary offers may be. Base pay is based on market location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Base pay is only one part of the Total Rewards that Benesch provides to compensate and recognize our staff professionals for their work. Full-time positions are eligible for a discretionary bonus and a comprehensive benefits package.

Benesch is an equal opportunity employer. We strongly value and encourage diversity and solicit applications from all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, gender, sex, age, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, marital status, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability (where applicant is qualified to perform the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodations), medical condition, protected veteran status, gender identity, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.

Applicants who are interested in applying for a position and require special assistance or an accommodation during the process due to a disability should contact the Benesch Human Resources Department by phone at 216-363-4578 or email at cwatson@beneschlaw.com.

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