Director Legal Operations

Ulta Beauty, Inc.•Bolingbrook, IL

72d•$143,000 - $189,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Realize new levels of autonomy and professional ownership. At Ulta Beauty, our Legal, Risk & Governance team provides clarity and continuity in ways that have made our growth a seamless venture, with keen insights that have opened up new and previously unexplored areas of opportunity. Through superior leadership and work that continually challenges, you'll have the chance to help set strategic direction through ethical and collaborative thought and practice. The Director of Legal Operations will report directly to Ulta Beauty's Chief Legal Officer and serve as a strategic partner to its Legal, Risk and Governance (LRG) Department leadership team. In this role, you will design and execute a multi-year roadmap to transform workflows, technology platforms, and resource management. Your mission is to elevate our legal function's agility, cost efficiency, and business alignment to support the demands of a Fortune 500 enterprise. This role is responsible for driving coordinated execution of the most critical LR&G initiatives, to deliver on Ulta Beauty's strategic and financial objectives, collaborating closely with the senior LR&G leadership team and key cross-functional stakeholders. The Director Legal Operations must demonstrate a critical blend of both strong strategic management and cross-functional leadership capabilities and a strong track record of successful execution of complex initiatives. The ability to build effective yet simple business processes, influence, advise and manage multiple cross-functional players across levels is critical.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree.
10+ years of experience in legal operations for corporate legal department or law firm, preferably at a Fortune 500 company or similarly scaled enterprise.
Exceptional analytical, strategic planning, and complex project-management skills.
Deep financial acumen with demonstrated expertise in budgeting, forecasting, spend analytics, and cost-savings initiatives.
Proven leadership skills/experience to build and maintain a high performing team.
Demonstrated leadership in vendor negotiation, RFP management, and service-level optimization.
Hands-on experience with full-lifecycle CLM deployments, e-billing systems, matter management tools, and AI-enabled review platforms.
Outstanding interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to influence senior LRG leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.
Ability to work in a team environment, build partnerships and work cross functionally.
Strong ability to prioritize and strong organization and time management skills.
Proactively resolve issues with minimal oversight.

Nice To Haves

Visionary Strategic Road mapping: craft multi-year plans that anticipate business needs and align legal operations with corporate objectives.
Financial Intelligence & Business Acumen: analyze spend-per-matter, budget variances, and profitability metrics to optimize resource allocation.
Data-Driven Leadership: develop and track KPIs, harness predictive analytics, and demonstrate operational impact to executive leadership.
Organizational Change & Innovation Management: lead complex change initiatives, drive rapid adoption of new technologies, and foster a culture of continuous improvement.
Executive Stakeholder Influence: communicate and negotiate effectively to secure alignment from senior LRG leadership and cross-functional partners.
Advanced Project Management Mastery: apply legal project-management frameworks for detailed scoping, risk mitigation, resource allocation, and on-time, on-budget delivery of initiatives.
Cross-Functional Collaboration & Team Leadership: build and inspire high-performing teams, while partnering seamlessly with Finance, IT, Procurement, and business units.

Responsibilities

Build, lead, and scale a high-performing legal operations team.
Develop and execute a multi-year legal operations roadmap with scenario analysis and clear milestones.
Develop and maintain a legal operations playbook, including standardized workflows, templates, and process maps.
Drive process excellence through Lean or Six Sigma methodologies, continuous improvement, and formal change-management programs.
Design and manage the legal intake process, defining SLAs, gated intake portals, and resource prioritization protocols.
Establish, track, and report on KPIs and dashboards that measure cycle times, cost savings, budget variances, and user adoption rates.
Oversee annual budgeting, forecasting, reporting, and spend analytics.
Lead vendor management, including outside counsel performance, alternative legal service providers, and technology partners.
Implement and optimize enterprise legal technology: contract lifecycle management (CLM), e-billing, matter management, knowledge management, AI-driven review, and contract analytics tools.
Collaborate with IT, Finance, Procurement, Risk, and business units to integrate legal operations into enterprise initiatives.
Pilot emerging technologies-such as generative AI and contract-analytics platforms-to drive innovation and competitive advantage.
Oversee e-discovery, information governance, and records-management strategies to ensure defensible data practices and mitigate litigation risk.
Launch and manage knowledge-management and training initiatives to promote best practices, tool adoption, and cross-functional expertise.
Manage external-facing initiatives, including outside-counsel RFPs, benchmarking studies, and representation at industry forums.
Conduct vendor risk assessments, compliance audits, and SLA reviews to ensure service quality and regulatory adherence.
Lead LRG's business continuity planning and legal resilience programs to prepare for disruptions.

Benefits

Full-time positions are eligible for paid time off, health, dental, vision, life and disability benefits.
Part-time positions are eligible for dental, vision, life, and disability benefits.

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