Lead Legal Operations Manager

Responsibilities

Legal Technology & AI Strategy

• Set the strategy, governance, and roadmap for the legal and compliance team’s tech stack, with a focus on AI integration
• Drive deeper integration of AI tools (Claude for Legal, Harvey) into day-to-day workflows including contracting, research, knowledge management, intake, and drafting
• Partner with Business Operations on Plaid-wide end-to-end integrations and ensure tech investments deliver measurable productivity gains

Legal Budget & Outside Counsel Spend

• Own the legal and compliance team’s budget, including legal billing operations and outside counsel spend
• Build and enforce outside counsel billing guidelines in Brightflag
• Partner with Finance on forecasting and accruals

Data, Metrics & Reporting

• Build dashboards and tracking for legal and compliance team performance, contracting throughput, and spend
• Use data to surface trends and risks, drive continuous improvement, and report to leadership

People Leadership & Development

• Coach and develop the Commercial Legal–focused Legal Operations team member who reports to this role
• Set clear expectations for growth and serve as manager, mentor, and advocate

Legal Vendor Management

• Manage legal vendor relationships, outside counsel, and legal tech platforms including Ironclad CLM, Brightflag, Discern, Logikcull, and Reveal
• Run intake, evaluation, onboarding, performance, and renewal processes

Program Management & Enablement

• Drive cross-functional programs including new tooling rollouts, process changes, and enablement training
• Partner with Sales, Product, Finance, Business Operations, and other teams
• Unblock the team on complex or escalated process questions

Qualifications

• 7+ years in legal operations at a high-growth company, including direct experience running contracting operations
• Strong program management, cross-functional leadership, and people management experience
• Experience owning a legal budget and managing outside counsel spend, including running spend management and e-billing platforms
• Experience writing and enforcing outside counsel billing guidelines and partnering with Finance on forecasting and accruals
• Experience managing legal vendor and outside counsel relationships across evaluation, onboarding, performance, and renewal
• Deep, hands-on expertise administering a CLM platform (Ironclad strongly preferred), including workflow configuration, template management, and Salesforce integrations
• Experience running legal-focused AI tools (Claude for Legal, Harvey, GC.AI) in production: scaling adoption, building guardrails and quality controls, and demonstrating productivity gains
• Clear, empathetic communicator who can cut through complexity and build partnerships across the organization
• Ability to turn operational problems into structured, scalable solutions using technology, process design, and systems thinking