Mass Torts Settlement Operations Manager

Barnes & Thornburg LLP•Morristown, NJ

4d•$125,000 - $165,000

About The Position

Barnes & Thornburg is seeking a Settlement Operations Manager for its product liability and mass torts resolution practice. The role oversees the systems, protocols, data integrity, and reporting standards used across resolution programs. Under the direction of the attorneys managing the matters, the Manager designs and standardizes settlement intake, tracking, quality assurance, and reporting procedures; serves as a subject matter expert on the team’s case management platform; and translates practice needs into requirements for firm technology personnel and outside platform vendors. The position is intended for someone with mass torts or settlement paralegal experience who has moved beyond individual case and docket support to coordinating systems, building procedures, and standardizing practices across teams. The Manager maintains working knowledge of where information is held and how tort-specific structures and system configurations differ. The position reports to the partners and attorneys overseeing the firm’s mass tort settlement matters and coordinates with lead paralegals on each settlement team. This is an attorney support role; the attorneys managing the matters retain decisions, oversight, and ownership of the settlements. The role requires regular interaction with attorneys, legal staff, firm technology personnel, and outside parties, and may involve periodic travel to firm offices to work directly with settlement teams. The Manager must perform the essential duties with minimal supervision, with or without reasonable accommodation. Duties may change based on firm needs.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree and at least 5 years of relevant experience in mass torts, complex litigation, settlement administration, insurance claims, or a comparable high-volume claims environment.
Demonstrated experience building, documenting, or standardizing processes across multiple teams or matters, beyond supporting a single case or matter.
Significant experience with legal case management, claims, or CRM systems, such as Case Manager Pro, Litify, or Filevine, or other SQL- or database-backed claims and litigation platforms; working understanding of relational case and claim data structures.
Working knowledge of settlement administration mechanics, including claimant inventories, releases, lien resolution, QSF administration, and payment tracking.
Advanced Excel skills, including pivot tables, lookups, and data validation, and ability to build, interpret, and maintain recurring reporting.
Proven ability to manage high-volume data and identify inconsistencies across large medical and claims datasets and legal documentation.
Proficiency in, or strong aptitude for, emerging legal AI tools for document review, data extraction, and reporting.
Excellent organization, attention to detail, problem-solving, and time-management skills; ability to work independently and as part of a fast-paced, high-performing team.
Ability to handle confidential and sensitive information with discretion and professionalism.
Ability to manage multiple concurrent workstreams and work under pressure.
Ability to perform the essential duties with minimal supervision, with or without reasonable accommodation.

Nice To Haves

Paralegal certification.
Experience at a settlement administrator, lien-resolution provider, qualified settlement fund administrator, or third-party claims administrator.
Experience designing quality assurance or audit procedures for claims or case data.
Experience training or coordinating staff across multiple teams without direct reporting authority.

Responsibilities

Provide high-level technical and administrative support for mass tort settlements, including claim and case data management, tracking, reporting, and quality control across the settlement lifecycle.
Serve as the practice’s primary subject matter expert on case management and settlement tracking systems, documenting how each tort is configured and what systems can and cannot do for each workstream.
Design, document, and maintain intake, data-entry, tracking, and reporting protocols under attorney direction; coordinate with lead paralegals to standardize practices where appropriate and document deliberate variations.
Administer settlement-data quality assurance, define testing, build and run recurring QA and exception reports, communicate findings, and track remediation to completion.
Lead intake of case and claim information, coordinate claimant data submissions with plaintiff firms, and reconcile submitted inventories against firm records.
Administer data import, export, batch-update, and reporting workflows; identify needed capabilities and define their requirements.
Translate practice needs into business requirements for firm technology personnel and outside platform vendors; participate in design discussions, conduct acceptance testing, and confirm functionality is usable in practice.
Keep claim and settlement data aligned across firm systems and third-party administrator portals through recurring validation; resolve discrepancies in claimant status, documentation, and payment milestones.
Maintain settlement payment tracking as a system of record, including payment status and history, tax documentation, and administrative expenses, and ensure records are complete and audit ready.
Coordinate and report healthcare, lien-resolution, and QSF data with settlement administrators, lien-resolution vendors, and clients; track conditions precedent to distribution of settlement funds.
Serve under attorney supervision as an administrative and data point of contact for settlement administrators, lien-resolution vendors, and plaintiff’s counsel regarding claim status, data submissions, and discrepancies.
Train lead paralegals, settlement team members, and new staff on protocols and system use; maintain reference documentation and job aids.
Perform other duties related to settlement operations as assigned.