Legal Operations

Column•San Francisco, CA

4d•$180,000 - $235,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Column is a bank and a software company built from the ground up, offering technology-forward banking solutions. They are looking for the Bank's first Legal Operations hire to serve as the team’s thought leader on what a modern, AI-native Legal function looks like at a regulated financial institution. This is a high-ownership, hands-on role for someone who has built or significantly transformed a Legal Ops function and knows how to turn a lean Legal team into a force multiplier. The role reports directly to the Bank’s General Counsel and is in-person at their Presidio-based office in San Francisco (3–4 days/week).

Requirements

7+ years in legal operations at a high-growth technology company or financial institution
A builder’s mentality. AI-native, first principles approach to building tools and systems
Creativity. Skills to evaluate what we do today, what’s important to the business, and what will make us better.
Hands-on experience with CLM systems, knowledge management, outside counsel management
Strong data and analytics skills — you can build the dashboards and metrics that leadership actually uses, and you make decisions from data.
Strong cross-functional operator who can work across Legal, Risk, Compliance, Finance, Engineering, and Growth and drive adoption without direct authority.
Hyper-organized project manager: comfortable juggling multiple concurrent workstreams, surfacing tradeoffs early, driving accountability, and knowing when to escalate.
Scrappy, roll-up-your-sleeves attitude with zero ego about getting hands dirty — and a positive, get-it-done disposition that inspires the people around you.

Responsibilities

Build the Legal Operating Model: Assess the current state of Legal’s operations, define the target operating model, and build toward it with urgency.
Build and run the operational cadences — intake SLAs, approval gates, cross-functional handoffs with Growth, Compliance, and Finance — that keep the function fast and accountable.
Develop KPIs, dashboards, and reporting mechanisms that give the General Counsel and leadership actionable insight into team performance, deal volume, cycle times, and operational health.
Identify operational bottlenecks proactively and implement scalable process improvements.
Own Legal Technology & AI: Audit existing tools, identify gaps, and develop a legal technology roadmap covering intake and workflow, CLM, e-billing, knowledge management, and AI-assisted workflows.
Design and build AI-assisted and agentic workflows. Use the Bank’s tools to build dashboards, playbooks, redlining tools, and databases.
Partner with the Bank’s Business Operations team to drive the same rigor and tech-forward approach within Legal as everywhere else in the Bank.
Own adoption, training, and change management for new tools and processes.
Contract Lifecycle & Knowledge Management: Own the legal side of contract lifecycle management — intake, routing, templates, repository, and reporting — in close coordination with Growth and Finance.
Design and run the legal intake and triage workflow, continuously improving how requests are classified, drafted, reviewed, and closed.
Own knowledge management: keep playbooks, briefs, and templates current, versioned, and findable; make them the source of truth for the team and the business.
Develop and maintain processes for documentation management and retention, including operational guidelines, best practices, and training materials.
Outside Counsel & Financial Operations: Manage outside counsel operations and the legal budget.
Review, modify, and enforce billing guidelines; audit spend and drive cost rigor across external legal relationships.
Collaborate with Finance on budgeting, forecasting, and spend reporting; surface actionable insights from legal spend data.
Develop frameworks for strategic firm and vendor selection, utilization, and performance management.

Benefits

Comprehensive health, dental, and vision plans, including options that are 100% covered by Column for you and 100% covered for your dependents!
Comprehensive family planning and fertility benefits via partnership with Carrot, including reimbursement of up to $20,000 in qualified expenses
Up to $2,000 (post-tax) monthly rent subsidy for employees living within 2 miles of Column’s office
FSA and HSA account options to enable use of pre-tax money for medical and dependent care expenses
401k plan, including self-directed brokerage options
Flexible time-off policy - take the time off that you want and need to relax and recharge
100% paid parental leave, including 16 weeks for birth mothers, 12 weeks for primary caregivers, and 8 weeks for secondary caregivers
Up to $4,500 in annual reimbursements for backup childcare
Catered lunches and dinners for SF employees
Commuter benefits, including paid transportation to-and-from the office
Regular team building events, including annual offsite