Director Legal Operations (Hybrid: Onsite and Remote Work)
About The Position
The Director, Legal Operations is a strategic leadership role responsible for driving operational excellence, enabling departmental effectiveness, and ensuring the successful execution of key Legal and corporate initiatives. Reporting to the Associate General Counsel, Corporate, this role serves as both the operational leader of the Legal function and a trusted advisor to the Legal Leadership Team. This position leads Legal Operations, oversees a team, and acts as a central integrator across Legal, Finance, IT, and business stakeholders. The role combines strategic planning, financial oversight, process and technology optimization, and executive-level project management to enhance the impact and scalability of the Legal Department within a publicly traded food distribution organization. This position has been segmented as Hybrid meaning there is a combination of three onsite days per week and the rest remote.
Requirements
- 8 years of experience in legal operations, corporate legal departments, consulting, or related fields.
- 3 years of people leadership and/or management experience.
- Proven experience leading teams and driving cross-functional initiatives.
- Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience.
Nice To Haves
- Strong business and financial acumen, including budget and vendor management.
- Deep knowledge of legal operations tools, processes, and best practices.
- Exceptional project management and organizational skills.
- Strategic thinker with strong execution capabilities.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
- High degree of professionalism, discretion, and sound judgment.
Responsibilities
- Partner with the Legal Leadership Team to define strategic priorities and drive execution across Legal and enterprise initiatives.
- Act as a trusted advisor, providing insights, decision support, and thought partnership.
- Translate strategy into actionable plans with clear milestones, accountability, and outcomes.
- Uphold Legal and company priorities, fostering a positive and cohesive work environment that helps to champion the company’s culture and values.
- Develop and execute the Legal Operations strategy, aligned with departmental and company objectives.
- Establish KPIs, dashboards, data analysis and reporting of the team’s productivity to the Legal Leadership Team, and suggest strategic initiatives to improve workflow, teamwork, and budget management.
- Drive continuous improvement across departmental processes, workflows, and service models.
- Establish and manage the operating rhythm for the Legal department (e.g., leadership and department meetings, town halls, etc.) including drafting/owning meeting agendas and materials and leading meetings.
- Enhance intra-department communication and cohesion through crafting and coordinating internal messaging and maintenance of Legal department websites.
- Lead Legal Department budgeting, forecasting, and financial planning, partnering with Finance.
- Partnering with the Legal Leadership Team, develop outside counsel strategy including law firm selection processes, spend management oversight, leading rate negotiations, development of alternative fee arrangements, and facilitation of invoice review.
- Implement cost management strategies and financial discipline.
- Oversee vendor relationships and preferred provider programs.
- Lead selection, implementation, and optimization of legal technology (e.g., legal AI tools, contract lifecycle management, e-billing, matter management).
- Partner with IT on systems integration, data governance, and security.
- Drive adoption of tools that improve productivity, transparency, and data insights.
- Lead, coach, and develop a team of legal operations professionals.
- Build organizational capability through training, tools, and best practices.
- Foster a high-performing, collaborative, and service-oriented culture.
- Act as a central point of coordination for sensitive or enterprise-critical efforts and initiatives of the Legal Leadership Team.
- Identify risks, solve complex problems, and drive timely resolution.
- Other duties as assigned by manager.
- Manage 3-5 Legal Operations associates of various levels.
Benefits
- annual incentive plan bonus
- long-term-incentive plan
- health insurance
- pre-tax spending accounts
- retirement benefits
- paid time off
- short-term and long-term disability
- employee stock purchase plan
- life insurance
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Director
Education Level
Associate degree
