Principal Legal Operations Specialist

Honeywell•Houston, TX

4d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Principal Legal Operations Specialist, also described as a Legal Transformation Project Manager, leads complex, high-impact programs that transform how Honeywell’s Corporate Legal function operates. The role owns end-to-end planning, governance, execution, adoption, and measurement of Legal Transformation initiatives, including process optimization, communications, financial operations, global operating models, and project portfolio management. It translates Legal priorities into executable roadmaps, aligns senior cross-functional stakeholders, establishes decision and accountability mechanisms, manages risks and dependencies, and drives measurable outcomes across the global legal function. The role serves as a trusted project and transformation advisor to Legal leadership and partners with HR, Communications, Finance, IT, Procurement, and business stakeholders. It requires independent leadership, influence without direct authority, comfort navigating ambiguity, and the ability to convert strategic priorities into sustainable operational improvements. The position reports to the Senior Director of Legal Operations and is based in Houston, Texas, or Charlotte, North Carolina, on a hybrid schedule, with up to two days per week remote. Occasional coordination across global time zones and limited travel for project, team, or leadership meetings may be required. The specialist also develops and implements legal operations strategies, policies, and procedures to optimize the performance of the legal department. Success is defined by measurable business outcomes, clear governance and decision rights, sustainable stakeholder adoption, and repeatable capabilities that improve the effectiveness, consistency, and scalability of Honeywell’s global Legal function.

Requirements

At least 5 years of progressive experience leading complex cross-functional projects, programs, or transformation initiatives in a corporate, professional-services, legal-operations, finance, HR, IT, or comparable environment.
Demonstrated experience independently leading initiatives from scope definition and business case development through implementation, adoption, and outcome measurement.
Experience establishing project or program governance, including decision rights, executive cadences, risk management, escalation mechanisms, and leadership reporting.
Experience managing multiple interdependent workstreams, priorities, budgets, resources, risks, and stakeholders in a global or matrixed organization.
Ability to influence senior leaders and cross-functional stakeholders, resolve ambiguity, frame decisions, and drive accountability without direct authority.
Ability to translate complex business and project information into concise executive communications, recommendations, dashboards, and decision materials.
Demonstrated ability to define measurable outcomes and use project, financial, operational, or adoption data to guide decisions and corrective actions.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s degree in business, legal studies, communications, finance, operations, information systems, or a related field.
PMP, Lean Six Sigma, Agile, Prosci, or other project or change-management certification, or equivalent practical experience.
Experience in legal operations or a corporate legal environment.
Experience leading enterprise or function-wide transformation initiatives involving multiple regions, functions, or technology platforms.
Experience developing business cases, investment recommendations, prioritization frameworks, or benefits-realization plans.
Experience designing governance models, global processes, or scalable operating standards.
Experience presenting recommendations, risks, and tradeoffs to senior leadership.
Experience with legal technology, contract lifecycle management, enterprise legal management, workflow automation, analytics, or enterprise transformation.
Experience using project-management and collaboration tools such as Smartsheet, Microsoft Project, Planner, Jira, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Teams, or similar tools.

Responsibilities

Lead multiple complex Legal Transformation projects or programs from strategy and scoping through implementation, adoption, and benefits realization.
Define project scope, objectives, success measures, decision rights, milestones, resource requirements, dependencies, and deliverables with executive sponsors and functional leaders.
Own integrated project and program plans, including timelines, resource models, budgets, risks, issues, dependencies, decisions, and executive reporting.
Design and establish governance frameworks, operating cadences, escalation paths, decision forums, and accountability mechanisms.
Lead interdependent workstreams across Legal, Finance, HR, Communications, IT, Procurement, and business teams; resolve blockers and drive timely cross-functional decisions.
Anticipate material risks, evaluate business and operational impacts, recommend mitigation strategies, and drive agreed actions to closure.
Define outcome measures, adoption indicators, and value-realization metrics; analyze performance and recommend course corrections to sponsors and Legal leadership.
Develop executive updates, dashboards, and recommendations communicating progress, tradeoffs, risks, required decisions, and expected outcomes.
Develop and lead stakeholder engagement, change management, communications, training, readiness, adoption, and post-launch reinforcement strategies.
Advise Legal leaders on project structure, governance, operating-model design, prioritization, sequencing, and implementation considerations.
Lead development and implementation of global legal operating models, including standardized processes, roles, controls, governance routines, and implementation roadmaps.
Partner with Communications and HR to manage Legal communications channels and routines, including Viva Engage, the quarterly Extended Leadership Team meeting, and Legal’s internal intranet presence.
Partner with Finance and budget owners to strengthen financial planning and operational discipline, including subscription management, investment inputs, spend visibility, forecasting, and annual operating plan execution.
Lead post-implementation reviews and translate lessons learned into scalable standards, playbooks, templates, controls, and process improvements.
Coach project leads, legal professionals, and senior stakeholders on project and change-management practices to strengthen execution capability across Legal.
Establish and continuously improve common Legal project-management methods, templates, dashboards, intake mechanisms, prioritization approaches, and reporting standards.
Represent Legal Transformation in cross-functional planning and governance forums and recommend priorities, sequencing, resource tradeoffs, and responses to execution risks.