Interview with Susie Maher: how AI is reshaping legal talent and business development

Susie Maher is Head of Business Development – AI and Technology at Winston Taylor, a transatlantic law firm, where she leads their go-to-market strategy across the AI sector and their broader technology, media and communications practice.

Susie connects market signals, where AI investment, regulation and disputes are heading, to concrete client opportunities across their core practices of critical transactions, strategic IP and litigation.

We sat down with Susie to learn more about her role and how AI is transforming legal services, talent strategies and business development across the legal sector.

Can you tell us about your role?

My role is to position Winston Taylor as a market leader in AI and innovation – uniting business development, marketing and internal adoption into a single, coherent strategy.

I sit at the intersection of the firm’s internal AI progress and its outward-facing market strategy, ensuring that our investments in technology and expertise translate into measurable revenue growth, deeper client relationships and a differentiated brand in an increasingly competitive legal market.

I sit on our AI Strategic Board and lead the AI Clients & Markets workstream, and I completed the Oxford Saïd Business School AI Programme to make sure I can go deep with partners and clients on this topic, not just talk about it at a surface level.

How is AI changing the profiles that law firms now prioritise when hiring senior leaders?

AI is changing what law firms look for in senior leaders by shifting the focus from functional expertise to transformation and growth.

Firms increasingly prioritise leaders who can drive AI-enabled business growth and new client offerings, lead firm-wide change and partner adoption of AI, and combine commercial, technology and legal expertise.

They also value leaders who can advise clients credibly on AI and innovation, use data and AI insights to improve profitability and decision-making, and build cross-functional teams across legal, technology and business services.

Beyond this, firms want leaders capable of developing AI-enabled products and alternative service models, balancing innovation with governance and risk management, and positioning the firm as a market leader in AI-enabled legal services, not just a user of AI.

Which roles or capabilities are becoming hardest to hire as AI adoption accelerates?

These roles include hybrid business leaders who can bridge partners, clients, technology teams and operations – combining commercial leadership with deep AI literacy.

Also, AI-literate BD and client-facing professionals who understand both the commercial opportunity and the legal landscape.

The critical need is not simply for people who can use AI tools to deliver legal work. It is for professionals who understand the breadth and depth of legal services that AI companies, and businesses embedding AI into their products and operations, now require.

We will see more of legal engineers and legal technologists – who can design AI enabled workflows and solutions.

How should law firms rethink junior roles and early‑career pathways in an AI‑enabled environment?

This is where I’d point to what Winston Taylor’s learning and development team has been building because it captures the shift well: the move isn’t from “manual work” to “no work,” it’s from learning by repetition to learning by design.

The goal is judgement, not just output. If AI absorbs the routine drafting and research, the groundwork juniors now need is different – prompting well, validating AI outputs against authoritative sources, interpreting results, and building the accountability habits that go with that.

We’re building smart, digital-first onboarding designed to build AI confidence from day one, with learning embedded directly in the flow of work rather than sitting apart from it. The traditional apprenticeship model isn’t dying – but it does need to become far more deliberate, since firms can no longer assume that judgment will simply be picked up along the way.

What new hybrid profiles are emerging across legal, technology and commercial teams?

As AI adoption accelerates, law firms are creating new hybrid roles that sit across legal, technology and commercial functions. Emerging profiles include:

• AI strategy and transformation leads: lawyers and business professionals driving firm-wide AI adoption and business change. This is my current role at Winston Taylor
• Legal Engineers: combining legal expertise with workflow automation and AI implementation
• AI Product Managers: developing AI-enabled legal products and client solutions
• Client Innovation Directors: working with clients to solve business challenges using AI and legal technology
• Knowledge and AI enablement leads: curating legal knowledge and optimising AI tools
• Legal operations and AI specialists: redesigning legal processes to improve efficiency and delivery with AI
• Commercial AI growth leaders: identifying AI-driven market opportunities and shaping go-to-market strategies

The common thread is that these roles blend legal knowledge, technology fluency, commercial thinking and change leadership, rather than operating within traditional functional silos.

How can hiring leaders assess AI literacy and judgment without over‑indexing on technical expertise?

I’d look for evidence of applied understanding, not credentials alone: can this person explain a real AI development and immediately connect it to a commercial or client consequence? Have they actually engaged with the technology, rather than absorbed it second-hand?

This mirrors what we ask of our own juniors now – it’s not enough to produce a polished, AI-assisted answer; the real test is whether someone is properly verifying outputs against authoritative sources and can explain their reasoning, not just their conclusion.

How will AI change the type of talent law firms need over the next five years?

AI will reshape the talent law firms need, placing greater value on leaders who combine legal expertise with commercial acumen, technology fluency and change leadership.

Firms will prioritise people who can drive AI adoption, develop new client solutions, use data to improve decision-making and work across legal, technology and business teams to deliver measurable business value.