Director, Legal Operations

Overview

The organization is seeking a Director, Legal Operations to serve as the centralized owner for Legal’s operations, technology, data, and execution. This role will lead Legal AI strategy and implementation and partner closely with Engineering, Product, Security, Finance, and other stakeholders to modernize and scale Legal.

As regulatory and business complexity grows, this leader will own operational strategy, tooling, process design, and metrics—driving automation, AI adoption, workflow standardization, and vendor optimization. The role is designed to ensure Legal operates as a strategic, data-driven partner to the business rather than a reactive cost center.

This position also establishes Legal’s financial, resourcing, and demand-management foundations to ensure the right work is done by the right resource at the right cost, with predictable outcomes as the organization scales.

Responsibilities

• Act as DRI for Legal Operations, Legal Technology, and Legal AI strategy, execution, and governance.
• Own Legal’s operating model across workflows, processes, resourcing, and service delivery.
• Own budget planning, forecasting, accruals, and cost modeling with Finance.
• Manage legal billing and outside counsel.
• Lead resourcing, capacity planning, headcount modeling, role design, and make/buy/automate decisions.
• Manage the legal technology stack, including CLM, matter management, AI tools, knowledge management, intake, and spend management.
• Enforce centralized ownership, standardization, and compliance across legal technology.
• Evaluate AI tooling; drive build-vs-buy decisions; translate requirements into technical roadmaps; ensure secure deployment; measure ROI; and lead integrations.
• Establish metrics, dashboards, and controls for workload, demand, spend, cycle times, efficiency, risk, and outcomes.
• Design and operate intake, triage, and demand-management frameworks, including prioritization models, service tiers, SLAs, and self-service pathways.
• Optimize vendor and contractor management, spend controls, billing review, performance measurement, and work allocation.
• Design, implement, and adopt AI-enabled legal workflows at scale.
• Evolve Legal knowledge management strategy (playbooks, templates, decision trees, guidance) for reuse and automation.
• Prioritize operational, process, and technology initiatives based on impact, risk reduction, and ROI.
• Lead change management, training, and adoption for new processes, technologies, and AI systems.
• Ensure compliance with regulatory, security, privacy, and compliance standards.
• Maintain operational controls to reduce legal, regulatory, and model risk.
• Enable attorneys to focus on legal judgment, strategy, and advisory work.

What you bring

• 10+ years in Legal Operations, legal technology, process design, finance-adjacent operations, or operational leadership.
• Experience scaling legal operations, legal technology, financial management, and data-driven execution.
• Experience driving automation and AI initiatives from strategy through deployment, governance, adoption, and ROI measurement.
• Understanding of legal workflows (contracts, regulatory, litigation, investigations, intake, outside counsel management) and process redesign.
• Hands-on experience optimizing legal technology platforms (CLM, matter management, spend management, intake, knowledge management, AI tools).
• Ability to translate requirements into technical roadmaps and operational plans.
• Experience establishing metrics, dashboards, controls, and OKRs.
• Communication skills to influence legal leaders, executives, and technical teams.
• Experience operating in ambiguity and leading transformation in high-growth environments.

Nice to haves

• Experience in fintech, crypto, financial services, or regulated industries.
• Background in enterprise AI governance, model risk management, or secure AI deployment.
• People management experience in Legal Operations or adjacent functions.
• Experience benchmarking Legal Operations practices, tooling, and cost structures against industry standards.

Compensation & Benefits

• Not specified in the job posting.

Location

• Not specified in the job posting.

Additional information

• Unless a specific application deadline is stated in the job posting, applications are accepted on an ongoing basis.
• Applicants are permitted to redact or remove information on their resume that identifies age, date of birth, or dates of attendance at or graduation from an educational institution.
• Qualified applicants with criminal histories are considered for employment, assessed in a manner consistent with the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.
• The organization may ask candidates to complete job-related skills or work-style assessments as part of the hiring process; results are considered alongside experience and interviews and are not the sole basis for any employment decision.
• Equal opportunity employer; discrimination or harassment is not tolerated.