Amol Bargaje, Senior Director: Practice Technology and Solutions, Mayer Brown
Amol Bargaje is the Senior Director: Practice Technology and Solutions at Mayer Brown, leading the firm’s innovation strategy to transform legal services through technology and process optimization. With over 20 years of experience in IT and legal innovation, he drives the embrace innovation initiative and manages global teams focused on agile development, client solutions, and operational efficiency.
In an exclusive interview with CIOReview, Bargaje shares his invaluable insights regarding the industry, including prevailing developments and challenges.
1. Your career has been deeply rooted in driving innovation and technology-enabled change. Could you walk us through the key experiences that shaped your ability to accelerate technology initiatives and align them with business priorities?
Whatever I am today is the result of formative experiences, some subtle and others transformative, that shaped my approach to technology and business. My academic foundation reflects this duality: an undergraduate focus on technology and a graduate specialization in business.
My journey started at P&G India, implementing enterprise IT solutions and realizing how critical it is to align technology with operational realities. I later joined Oracle Financial Services Solutions, where I gained insight into the lifecycle of complex systems. These experiences gave me both technical depth and a sense of responsibility toward long-term adoption.
For the last two decades, I have worked in legal tech, an industry that challenges innovation within highly regulated, risksensitive environments. Several key principles have emerged:
• Connect with the real end user. Direct engagement reveals the true problem or opportunity.
• Make stakeholders part of the journey. Involvement ensures adoption and sustainability.
• Let data guide decisions. Metrics bring clarity, accountability, and measurable progress.
Innovation is not just about speed. It is about relevance, adoption, and lasting impact.
2. Client expectations and business demands are constantly evolving. What frameworks do you use to decide which innovations are worth pursuing to create real value for clients?
We live in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. Success requires identifying not just stated needs but hidden ones. I often use Toyota’s “5 Whys” and direct engagement with stakeholders to uncover the real issue.
Once the true ask is clear, the next step is measuring potential value. Traditional financial metrics such as ROI, IRR, Net Present Value, and Cost-Benefit Analysis are useful, but innovation often demands looking beyond numbers to strategic and qualitative value.
The most impactful solutions come from uncovering the true problem rather than reacting to surface-level demands 
For prioritization, I rely on frameworks like Impact vs. Effort and Value vs. Risk grids, balancing ambition with practicality. These tools help focus on initiatives that deliver meaningful client outcomes.
I also use Design Thinking during early ideation. Its human-centered approach ensures innovations are technically sound, financially viable, and relevant to client needs.
Ultimately, pursuing innovation requires balancing quantitative rigor, qualitative insight, and long-term alignment with client strategy. It is not about chasing trends but identifying what is valuable, sustainable, and meaningful.
3. What challenges do you face in balancing cost, risk, and operational scale, and how do you navigate them while keeping innovation on track?
As a certified Project Management Professional, I reference the “Iron Triangle” of constraints: cost, schedule, and quality. Every project operates within these limits, and success depends on finding the right balance.
Innovation must be rooted in an organization’s refreshed strategic vision. That vision provides the foundation for filtering ideas and deciding where to focus resources. Once promising initiatives are identified, the next challenge is to test them quickly and effectively.
This requires an agile mindset. Innovation leaders must encourage experimentation and help stakeholders accept that some failures are part of the process. Operational teams are often built for precision and stability, not speed and iteration. The role of the innovation leader is to establish processes for quick testing without undermining the core business.
Even when an idea appears promising, scaling should not happen too quickly. The mantra “do not scale until profitable” applies. It is vital to reconfirm value with stakeholders before significant investment. Scaling prematurely can create costs and risks that outweigh benefits.
Cost, risk, and scale are dynamic. Navigating them requires flexibility, discipline, and focus on delivering real value.
4. Which technology or trend do you believe will most significantly influence innovation in the legal and professional services industry?
Generative AI will have the most transformative impact on legal and professional services. Unlike previous AI waves, Generative AI has achieved extraordinary adoption and visibility. Its resilience, accessibility, and rapid development make it different from earlier technologies like blockchain or NFTs.
Its accessibility is remarkable, requiring minimal training and usable by anyone from new graduates to senior partners. Its multimodal nature—text, audio, and video—makes it powerful.
Equally important is the pace of development. Models and applications evolve in weeks or months, not years. This unprecedented velocity ensures it is not a temporary fad but a long-lasting shift in how we work.
Generative AI is set to transform the legal profession as electricity and the internet reshaped industries.
5. What guidance would you give young professionals who want to lead innovation in global organizations, based on the lessons you have learned along your journey?
My guidance: stay curious, stay connected, and stay grounded in value.
Innovation starts with understanding, not technology. Connect with users, ask questions, and listen deeply. The most impactful solutions come from uncovering the true problem rather than reacting to surface-level demands.
Involve stakeholders early and often. Collaboration accelerates adoption and sustainability. Innovation thrives when it is collective.
Use data as a compass. Measure what matters and let metrics guide decision-making, while using numbers to validate ideas rather than veto them.
Embrace frameworks to balance cost, risk, and timelines, but remain agile. Be willing to fail fast and pivot when necessary. Not every idea will succeed, but every attempt can produce valuable lessons.
Stay curious about emerging technologies such as Generative AI. Experiment boldly, but remember technology is only as powerful as the problems it solves and the people it serves.
Finally, lead with purpose. Anchor innovation to your organization’s vision and strategy, and always ask whether an initiative is creating real value. If the answer is yes, you are on the right path.