The Department

MDR LAB was founded in 2017 to enable Mishcon de Reya to engage and invest in the growing LegalTech market. As the first dedicated LegalTech incubator and investment arm in the UK, MDR LAB targets early-stage companies who are trying to transform the legal industry and leverages the firm to help them build better products. Fast forward to today, MDR LAB has now worked with 30 early stage legaltech startups, has partnered with over 10 of the products, and made equity investments in four of the businesses.

Duties and Responsibilities

The successful candidate will be the driving force behind the ongoing management and growth of our LegalTech agenda. This includes market engagement, product incubation and running structured pilots and programmes with startups.

Key responsibilities of the role include:

Market engagement:

• Representing MDR Lab across the Mishcon de Reya Group and externally in the market. This will involve attending events and conferences, providing presentations and developing thought leadership and other content.
• Organizing and running a series of events and meetups throughout the year focused on the different actors from across the legaltech ecosystem: startups, investors, other buyers.
• Managing our pipeline: Mapping the market, following key trends, desktop research, meeting with founders and learning about their businesses, understanding relevance to Mishcon de Reya and tagging and managing these contacts and relationships in our CRM.

Delivery of MDR Lab initiatives:

• Working with leaders around the business and our Practice Transformation teams to gather problem statements and strategic priorities.
• Managing the startup scouting and selection process ensuring that we select companies that align with our business objectives and processes
• Programme and pilot management: You will be responsible for onboarding vendors (Contracting, InfoSec, Tech set-up) and working closely with the companies to help them achieve their product objectives. This will also include gathering feedback, tracking performance data (e.g. Usage stats) and developing key thinking about the opportunity to collaborate going forward. In some cases, you might also be required to work alongside Practice Transformation to support ongoing adoption.

Skills/Experience

This role is suitable for someone with previous experience of legaltech - ideally from the buy-side, with prior experience running pilots with startups and scaleups. We are interested in candidates who can bring working practices and existing relationships to bear and further develop our processes. We are a small and lean team so are always looking for ways to improve and automate the way we work.

• Experience in the legaltech market
• Able to operate independently in a lean, fast-paced environment
• Outstanding organisational skills; you handle multiple projects simultaneously and effectively efficiently and continually move projects forward
• Strong communicator (verbal and written)
• A passionate and positive attitude, naturally collaborative, willing to be proactive and take on responsibility outside of your role to get the job done
• An analytical and inquisitive mindset with the ability to unlock insight and drive to outcomes

Please note that this job profile is not an exhaustive list of duties but merely an outline of the key components of the role. You may be required by your line manager to take on additional responsibilities when requested.

About The Mishcon de Reya Group

The Mishcon de Reya Group is an independent international professional service business with law at its heart, employing over 1450 people with close to 670 lawyers. It includes the law firm Mishcon de Reya LLP and a collection of leading consultancy businesses that complement the firm's legal services. We have grown rapidly in recent years, showing more than 40% revenue growth in the past five years alone.

Based in London, Cambridge, Oxford, and Singapore, with an association with Karas So LLP in Hong Kong, the firm services an international community of clients and provides advice in situations where the constraints of geography often do not apply. The work we undertake is cross-border, multi-jurisdictional and complex, spanning six core practice areas: Corporate; Dispute Resolution; Employment; Innovation; Private; and Real Estate.

As of 1 January 2023, Mishcon de Reya and Taylor Vinters merged. The merger delivers on both firms' strategies to support the innovation economy and accelerate our growing share of the technology, media and life-sciences legal and consultancy services market in the UK and in key international innovation hubs globally.

In times of such far-reaching and profound change we want to be the law firm that enables our clients - and our own people - to shape the world's possibilities. We are here to help our clients benefit from new economies, new geographic centres of wealth, the new global movement of people and capital, and the impact of new technologies and new knowledge.

Our purpose remains rooted in our founding values. We take pride in the diverse range of people who make up the firm and are proactive in driving change and continuous improvement across the spectrum of equality, diversity and inclusion. Mishcon Academy, our in-house place of learning, development and new thinking for our people, clients and contacts and our innovative impact strategy, including a commitment to be a net zero carbon business, also play a central strategic role in the direction of the firm. In 2020 we launched Mishcon Purpose, a first-of-its-kind sustainability practice providing Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) advice and purpose-driven insight to clients.

The Mishcon de Reya Group comprises standalone businesses MDR Brand Management, MDR Cyber, MDR Discover, MDR Mayfair (in London, Singapore and Dubai) and MDRx. Complementary to Mishcon de Reya's core areas of work, each is led by best in class professionals recruited from a variety of non-legal industries and sectors.

We strive to create a fully diverse and inclusive workplace where all our people are empowered to fulfil their potential. We are proud of our agile working culture and are always happy to talk flexible working.

#LI-Hybrid