Legal Operations Specialist

Gibson Dunn•Los Angeles, NY

12d

About The Position

Gibson Dunn is hiring a U.S.-based Legal Operations Specialist to project-manage attorney transitions across the Firm. Each lateral arrival, secondment, and departure is handled as an individual project. The Specialist serves as its central coordinator, aligns involved parties, adapts the Firm’s process roadmaps to the circumstances, and drives the transition to completion on schedule. The role supports high-quality client work by enabling effective processes as attorneys move into, through, and out of the Firm. Each Specialist has a primary transition type and cross-trains on the others to support coverage and continuity during absences or periods of higher volume. The position reports to the Manager, Onboarding and Offboarding. It requires coordination across Firm functions, careful handling of confidential information, independent judgment, and escalation of sensitive or high-risk matters when appropriate. The Specialist also maintains transition records, evaluates and recommends process improvements, and analyzes transition-related data for leadership.

Requirements

Three to five years of experience in legal operations, law firm administration, project management, or a comparable professional services environment where accuracy and deadlines are critical.
A demonstrated record of coordinating multi-party projects from initiation through completion.
Strong project management and organizational skills, including the ability to manage several concurrent transitions without losing detail.
Sound independent judgment, including knowing when a matter should be escalated.
Clear and professional oral and written communication skills, including communication with partners and senior stakeholders.
Discretion and care in handling confidential and sensitive information.
Willingness to cross-train across transition types rather than remain in a single area.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with conflicts and new business intake systems such as Intapp and document management platforms such as iManage.
Direct experience with lateral integration, secondments, or attorney departures.
Experience working across business services functions within a law firm.

Responsibilities

Coordinate assigned attorney transitions—including lateral arrivals, secondments, and departures—from initiation through completion.
Plan and direct transitions, adapt process roadmaps to each matter, and set and manage timelines with involved parties.
Liaise with Recruiting, HR, Conflicts and New Business Intake (NBI), the Office of General Counsel, Finance, Information Services, Practice Management, and Office Operations to resolve dependencies and obstacles.
Maintain a primary transition type while remaining proficient across other types, and provide coverage and continuity during absences or periods of higher volume.
Exercise independent judgment and escalate sensitive or high-risk matters as needed.
Evaluate how processes work in practice and develop and recommend improvements to supporting playbooks and roadmaps.
Maintain accurate, current records in team trackers, dashboards, and matter and NBI systems.
Coordinate transition-related data transfers, such as portable work product and precedent banks on arrival or personal data, client files, and precedent banks on departure, with Information Governance and Information Services.
Manage operational setup of an incoming lateral’s book of business through opened and billable status, including NBI, conflicts clearance, matter opening, client-file import mapping, and engagement letter and fee coordination.
Serve as the lateral’s primary contact for NBI matters during the first four to six months after arrival, providing attentive support.
Analyze NBI process data for lateral populations and provide insights and recommendations to leadership.
Facilitate the full secondment lifecycle, including placement, agreement execution, extensions, active-management logistics, and return.
Track secondments globally and work with Practice Group Managers, Business Development, and Career Services to develop useful insights and data-backed conclusions.
Ensure information security and governance procedures are followed for each secondment.
Serve as a subject matter expert for secondees and advise them on questions and concerns.
Manage partner departures, including coordination, internal communications and outreach, transition documentation, and alignment of parties through the exit.
Facilitate partner retirements in coordination with relevant teams to transfer matters and client relationships.
Help develop and execute a new global associate departure process, including creating matter-transition plans, notifying attorneys-in-charge of affected matters, coordinating preservation of work product and data with departing associates, and keeping parties informed.
Perform other duties as assigned.