Sr Manager, Legal Operations

Valmont Industries, Inc. • Omaha, NE

13d • Onsite

About The Position

The Senior Manager, Legal Operations builds and runs the business operations of Valmont’s global legal function. The role owns legal spend and budgeting, outside counsel management, legal technology and AI, data and reporting, and processes that allow lawyers to focus on high-value work. Valmont is early in its legal operations journey, making this a builder role. Near-term priorities include implementing a legal e-billing and spend management platform, establishing contract lifecycle management integrated with Valmont’s IFS ERP, delivering the department’s first metrics dashboard, and leading the responsible adoption of AI across Legal.

The role reports directly to the CLO and is a member of the legal leadership team. It works with legal department leaders and attorneys, Finance and FP&A, Accounts Payable, IT and cybersecurity, Procurement, HR, Internal Audit, and Risk Management. Its scope is the global legal department, including support for business segment counsel and international legal teams, and its vendors include outside counsel, legal technology providers, and alternative legal service providers. Direct reports are to be confirmed.

The position is based at Valmont’s Omaha headquarters. The posting describes travel of approximately 10% to segment and international legal team locations, although its working-environment section states that there are no travel requirements.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in business, finance, information systems, or a related field, with 6+ years of experience.
• 4+ years of experience in legal operations, legal department management, or a closely related function, including significant in-house experience.
• Hands-on experience implementing and administering e-billing or matter management platforms, including requirements gathering, integration, and user adoption.
• Strong financial acumen, including budgeting, forecasting, accruals, and spend analytics.
• Proven record managing outside counsel and legal vendor relationships and building strong working relationships with Finance and IT.
• Advanced Excel skills and data visualization skills using tools such as Power BI or Tableau.
• Working knowledge of generative AI capabilities, limitations, and risks.

Nice To Haves

• Experience at a global public company, ideally in manufacturing or industrial sectors.
• Contract lifecycle management implementation experience, including ERP integration.
• Familiarity with the CLOC Core 12 and ACC Legal Operations Maturity Model.
• Process mapping and improvement skills.
• PMP or Lean Six Sigma certification.
• JD, LLM, legal, or paralegal background.
• Experience building a legal operations function from the ground up.
• Track record piloting and scaling generative AI tools in a legal department, with measurable results.

Responsibilities

• Own the legal department budget, including annual planning, monthly forecasting, accruals, and variance reporting with Finance.
• Lead outside counsel management, including panel design, engagement letters, billing guidelines, rate negotiations, and alternative fee arrangements.
• Run invoice review and approval workflows from receipt through payment in partnership with Accounts Payable.
• Track outside counsel performance and conduct periodic law firm reviews.
• Manage legal vendor relationships and contracts, including ALSPs and other legal service providers.
• Identify and deliver cost savings while protecting the quality of legal support.
• Lead implementation, administration, and adoption of the legal e-billing and spend management platform.
• Define the legal technology roadmap, including contract lifecycle management, matter management, intake and triage, and entity management.
• Ensure legal systems integrate with IFS and other enterprise systems and meet IT security and data privacy requirements.
• Build legal department metrics and dashboards covering spend, matter volume, cycle times, and service levels.
• Deliver regular reporting to the CLO and periodic reporting for senior leadership and the Board.
• Lead Legal’s AI strategy and roadmap in alignment with Valmont’s enterprise AI policy and IT governance.
• Identify high-value AI use cases, evaluate vendors and pilots, measure results, and scale effective tools.
• Partner with IT, cybersecurity, and Privacy on AI technical due diligence and data security, and implement confidentiality and privilege safeguards set by Legal’s attorneys.
• Operationalize AI guardrails and outside counsel AI billing guidelines approved by the CLO, including training, workflow controls, invoice review, and compliance reporting.
• Train lawyers and staff on AI tools, effective use, and limitations, and build AI fluency across the department.
• Track legal-industry AI practices, tools, opportunities, and risks and bring them to the CLO.
• Map current legal processes and design scalable, standardized workflows.
• Lead knowledge management, including templates, playbooks, clause libraries, and the legal intranet.
• Partner with IT and Privacy on Legal records retention and information governance.
• Coordinate department planning, goals, onboarding, training, and team communications.
• Lead change management to support adoption of new tools and processes across Legal and business partners.
• Develop Legal’s annual operating plan, anchored in a baseline maturity assessment and prioritized roadmap.
• Design and run legal intake, including a single front door for requests, triage rules, and service levels.
• Track workload and capacity to inform staffing and headcount planning.
• Own Legal communications, including the intranet, department updates, and an annual report on Legal’s value to the business.

Benefits

• Healthcare, including medical, prescription drugs, dental, and vision.
• 401k retirement plan with company match.
• Paid time off.
• Employer-paid life insurance.
• Employer-paid short-term and long-term disability, including maternity leave.
• Work Life Support.
• Tuition reimbursement up to $5,250 per year.
• Voluntary programs such as tobacco cessation, Type 2 diabetes reversal, one-on-one health coaching, and mortgage services.

What This Job Offers

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