Description:

Summary: The Knowledge Management Lawyer (“KM Lawyer”) will be part of the Financial Institutions Global Practice Group's ("Financial Institutions GPG") overall support infrastructure and will help the lawyers in the Financial Institutions GPG work more effectively and efficiently. The Financial Institutions GPG includes lawyers from the Insurance and Banking and Financial Services Practice Area Teams. The better the Financial Institutions GPG can cull, curate and share current market knowledge and best practices, the more effective and proficient it will be in its practice and service to clients. Creating a centralized function and having a dedicated professional to manage both process and information will also enable the Financial Institutions GPG to operate more efficiently, which will produce both time and cost savings and provide additional value-add for clients.

The KM Lawyer will coordinate the Financial Institutions GPG's implementation of firm-wide KM efforts by collaborating with the GPG's KM Partners to create best practices, to achieve consensus on standards of operational efficiency, and to develop measures of success for the practice's KM program, while promoting a culture of knowledge-sharing and practice innovation.

Duties and Responsibilities: Depending on how the needs of the practice evolve, the duties and responsibilities of the KM Lawyer may include, but not be limited to:

Strategy and Analysis

Work closely with the Financial Institutions KM Partners and GPG leadership to analyze and create strategic initiatives to establish goals and objectives for optimal results.
Collaborate with members of the Financial Institutions GPG to assess current and relevant knowledge needs.
Develop, define and implement procedures to meet those needs and establish a method for consistent review of the strategy.
Communicate regularly with other KM Lawyers at the firm to share best practices.

Organization and Dissemination of Knowledge

Work with the Financial Institutions GPG to evaluate the practice's current KM-related efforts, working to improve the ability to capture and share information and research between Financial Institutions GPG lawyers, and to identify and prioritize new projects that will contribute to the efficiency of the practice.
Work with Financial Institutions GPG lawyers to generate knowledge content and facilitate the sharing of knowledge and information in general.
Facilitate the Financial Institutions GPG's efforts to create and maintain a searchable knowledge repository (e.g., practice collaboration site) of exemplar forms, precedent, memos, research, business development materials and other helpful content for the practice such as industry updates and client alerts.
Implement procedures for generating, maintaining, updating, accessing and disseminating information (including the Financial Institutions GPG's forms and precedent) and other materials.
Using Foundation, the firm's experience management platform, manage the Financial Institution GPG's current matter profiling efforts, generate and review reports in Foundation to ensure that matters are profiled appropriately, and assist in Foundation training of new associates.
Develop and implement consistent and effective means of communicating the availability and location of the Financial Institutions GPG's knowledge resources.

Management of Legal Processes

Work with the KM Partners and members of the Financial Institutions GPG to evaluate the practice's current KM-related efforts to identify and prioritize new projects that will contribute to the efficiency of the practices.
Develop workflow improvements for common legal processes.
Assist in business development efforts for the Financial Institutions GPG, including compiling, organizing, and making available client pitch materials, identifying relevant issues and developments for clients, and preparing contributions to client-facing publications (e.g., bulletins, newsletters, etc.)
Constantly communicate with the lawyers to establish legal project management processes to track information at all stages of a matter and conduct post-matter reviews of lessons learned in order to update knowledge content and to obtain information in determining what knowledge resources are most relevant.

Identification of Current Developments and Trends

Monitor, inform, and update the Financial Institutions GPG with regard to important legal and industry developments and trends through training, advisories, email updates and other processes.
Identify legal or business trends and suggest innovative methods to deliver services to clients more effectively.
Draft and collect thought leadership materials and presentations, including training materials, memos, alerts, practice notes, industry updates, and reports from attendance at CLEs and conferences.

Lawyer Training/CLEs and Technology Evaluation

Develop and present training for the Financial Institutions GPG on the firm's KM technology platforms including, but not limited to the Insurance and Banking and Financial Institutions collaboration sites, tailoring the training to highlight aspects of the technology most relevant for the groups in light of their unique needs.
Identify possible gaps in substantive training relevant to the Financial Institutions GPG, and coordinate with Learning and Development to develop, organize and deliver (individually or with others) training, which may include workshops and off-site training.
Work with the KM department to evaluate, test and deploy innovative technology to reduce manual data collection, automate document creation, assist with legal research, and to otherwise support the practices.
Other duties as required by the practice.

Qualification Requirements: To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform the Duties and Responsibilities (Duties) above satisfactorily and meet the requirements below. The requirements listed below are representative of the minimum knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations will be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the job. If you need such an accommodation, please email staffrecruiting@sidley.com (current employees should contact Human Resources).

Education and/or Experience:
Required:

Juris Doctor from an ABA accredited law school.
A minimum of 4 years of experience as an insurance lawyer with strong regulatory and transactional experience (including M&A and capital markets experience), preferably focusing on insurance in a large firm environment.
Admitted to practice law in Illinois in good standing.

Preferred:
Prior experience using Foundation

Other Skills and Abilities:
The following will also be required of the successful candidate: