Director of Data Services

Job title: Director of Data Services

About the Role Gibson Dunn seeks an executive leader to own and evolve the firm's data strategy and data architecture. The Director of Data Services will govern how data is captured, governed, integrated, and activated across financial systems, matters, client relationships, and AI models, and will build the enterprise-grade data foundation that underpins the firm’s AI program, BI capability, and strategic decision-making. Reporting to the Chief Legal Operations Officer, this role will establish data governance culture and deliver analytics that provide unprecedented strategic intelligence to leadership and practice groups.

What You'll Do

• Own and continuously evolve the firm's enterprise data strategy and multi-year roadmap; align with AI strategy and firm priorities; present ROI to leadership.
• Build and chair the Data Governance Council; lead annual data strategy reviews with firm leadership.
• Design and oversee the enterprise data architecture, creating a unified, governed data layer integrating Aderant, iManage, Intapp, CRM, HR systems, and operational platforms; lead the selection and implementation of modern data infrastructure tools, ETL/ELT orchestration, data catalog, and lineage tooling.
• Establish and enforce enterprise data standards, taxonomies, and metadata policies; resolve multi-definition issues affecting metrics like realization rate, utilization, and client revenue.
• Own the firm’s Master Data Management program, establishing authoritative systems of record for clients, matters, attorneys, rates, and timekeeper hierarchy.
• Oversee the data engineering team and set technical standards for pipeline development, data quality testing, schema design, and system integration architecture.
• Own the Practice Intelligence BI platform, providing self-serve access to matter pipelines, utilization, realization, client revenue, lateral productivity, and workforce analytics; partner with Finance, BD, and HR to deliver analytics for compensation, pricing, staffing.
• Establish a BI Center of Excellence; govern tooling; build a data-user community and expand self-serve analytics firm-wide.
• Data Governance & Compliance: develop and own the Data Governance Policy; manage Data Stewardship; ensure compliance with GDPR, CCPA, confidentiality rules, client data obligations, and firm information security policies; serve as the data compliance authority.
• Represent the firm’s data interests in technology decisions, ensuring architecture, security, and governance requirements are embedded in major procurements.
• AI Data Enablement: own the data layer powering all AI programs, define data quality/classification/access controls for AI retrieval, training, or fine-tuning; build AI-ready data infrastructure and coordinate with IT to remove blockers; own data audit logging infrastructure for AI tools to provide complete, auditable records of data access.
• Executive Leadership: build, lead, and develop a high-performing data organization.