Legal Operations Program Manager

Cushman & Wakefield • Chicago, IL

2d

About The Position

The Legal Operations Program Manager leads and coordinates the global programs, projects, and cross-functional initiatives that keep the Legal Operations function running smoothly. This role owns day-to-day workflow design, process governance, and performance tracking — managing program plans, maintaining key performance indicators, coordinating stakeholder engagement and change management, and giving the Legal Operations Leader clear visibility into progress, risks, and outcomes across the department's active initiatives.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree preferred.
• 5+ years of project management, program management, legal operations, or similar, transferable experience preferred.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite or comparable applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, SharePoint, Visio, Power BI, Power Automate, and Outlook.
• Proficient and curious in AI
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple workstreams, timelines, stakeholders, and deliverables at once.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to prepare clear, executive-ready updates.
• Comfortable partnering with a functional leader to translate strategic priorities into executable, well-governed workstreams.
• Strong analytical, organizational, and problem-solving skills, with a bias toward simplifying and standardizing recurring work.
• Willingness to challenge the effectiveness of current processes and procedures, constantly seeking ways to improve efficiency.
• Results-oriented, self-motivated team player with excellent attention to detail and consistent follow-through across cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead and manage global Legal Operations programs and projects, ensuring alignment with departmental priorities, timelines, milestones, and success measures.
• Own the department's centralized intake process and front-door experience, ensuring requests are triaged, routed, and tracked consistently across the team.
• Develop and maintain program governance materials — project plans, status updates, risk logs, stakeholder communications, and executive-ready reporting — for review with the Legal Operations leader.
• Maintain and report against key performance indicators (KPIs) and adoption metrics established in partnership with the Legal Operations leader, providing visibility into progress, effectiveness, and value realization.
• Own the department's internal communications and change-management cadence — including newsletters, adoption campaigns, training coordination, and stakeholder engagement — to drive awareness and consistent use of Legal Operations tools and processes.
• Partner with Legal, Compliance, TDS, EHS, Risk, and other cross-functional stakeholders to coordinate execution and support successful implementation of programs and initiatives.
• Identify opportunities to improve, standardize, or streamline recurring department workflows, and lead process-improvement efforts from design through implementation.
• Coordinate governance forums, working groups, and stakeholder meetings to ensure alignment, accountability, and timely resolution of issues or dependencies.
• Maintain the department's knowledge, learning, and reference resources — training materials, onboarding guides, and process documentation — to support consistent adoption across the team.
• Track and report on technology usage and platform adoption across the Legal Operations tool set, flagging gaps or training needs.
• Evaluate outcomes for owned programs and workstreams and recommend adjustments to improve efficiency and user experience.

Benefits

• health, vision, and dental insurance
• flexible spending accounts
• health savings accounts
• retirement savings plans
• life, and disability insurance programs
• paid and unpaid time away from work

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level