Director, Legal Operations

Job Summary

The Director, Legal Operations leads the strategy, infrastructure, and optimization of the legal function to ensure the efficient, scalable, and high-quality delivery of legal services across the organization.

Responsibilities

• Lead legal operations strategy, governance, and continuous improvement initiatives to align and optimize legal services delivery, processes, staffing models, and policies with organizational objectives and risk management frameworks
• Partner closely with legal and business leadership, manage the legal department's technology ecosystem, vendor and outside counsel programs, performance and reporting frameworks, and administrative operations
• Manage day-to-day administrative oversight of legal support staff, including legal secretaries and paralegals, encompassing workload allocation, performance management, coaching, and staffing decisions to ensure consistent and high-quality support
• Develop and oversee legal department budgeting, forecasting, and financial reporting practices, including spend analytics, outside counsel management, and fee arrangement optimization
• Develop and implement policies, playbooks, templates, and self-service tools to support consistent, compliant, and scalable legal support across the organization
• Coordinate cross-functional collaboration with finance, procurement, information technology, and risk teams to align legal operations processes, data, and systems
• Oversee change management, training, and communication related to new legal operations processes, systems, and standards to support adoption and sustainable use

Knowledge/Skills/Abilities

• Familiarity with legal operations best practices
• Excellent quantitative reasoning and analytical judgment
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Excellent organizational and presentation skills
• Demonstrated ability to work in a high-profile, high-pressure environment effectively
• Demonstrated ability to communicate effectively with key internal and/or external stakeholders
• Contract and vendor management skills
• Demonstrated ability to understand processes and make improvements
• Technology management and adoption
• Data analysis
• Budgeting and financial management
• Change management
• Knowledge management

Required Education And Experience

• Bachelor’s Degree in Arts/Sciences (BA/BS) in business, legal studies, or related field
• Minimum 8 years of progressive experience in legal operations, law firm administration, or corporate legal department management
• Minimum 4 years of experience in strategic planning, budgeting, and performance management within professional services or a legal environment
• Minimum 2 years of experience working within and enhancing an outside counsel management program
• Minimum 2 years of experience leading cross-functional projects and/or implementing legal technology solutions

Preferred

• Master’s degree in Arts/Sciences (MA/MS) in business administration, operations, or related discipline
• Minimum 6 years in a department head and/or managerial and/or leadership role in a large, multi-faceted, fast-paced organization or governmental body
• Minimum 2 years of experience leading paralegals and legal support staff
• Project Management Professional or similar operations-focused certification is preferred