Director, Legal Operations

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Act as the Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) for the Legal Operations, Legal Technology, and Legal AI strategy, execution, and governance.

• Oversee Legal’s operational framework, including workflows, processes, resource allocation, and service delivery.

• Manage budget planning, forecasting, accruals, and cost modeling in collaboration with Finance.

• Supervise legal billing and external counsel management.

• Lead efforts in resource management, capacity planning, headcount modeling, role design, and decisions regarding make/buy/automate.

• Oversee the legal technology suite, which includes Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM), matter management, AI tools, knowledge management, intake, and spending oversight.

• Ensure centralized ownership, standardization, and compliance across the legal technology landscape.

• Assess AI tools, drive build-versus-buy decisions, convert requirements into technical roadmaps, guarantee secure deployment, measure return on investment (ROI), and lead integrations.

• Set up metrics, dashboards, and controls for workload, demand, expenditure, cycle times, efficiency, risk, and outcomes.

• Design and implement frameworks for intake, triage, and demand management, including prioritization models, service tiers, SLAs, and self-service options.

• Enhance vendor and contractor management, enforce spending controls, review billing, assess performance, and allocate work effectively.

• Create, implement, and promote AI-enhanced legal workflows on a large scale.

• Advance the Legal knowledge management strategy through playbooks, templates, decision trees, and guidance documentation.

• Prioritize operational, process, and technology initiatives based on their impact, risk mitigation, and ROI.

• Lead change management, training, and the adoption of new processes, technologies, and AI systems.

• Ensure adherence to regulatory, security, privacy, and compliance standards.

• Maintain operational controls to mitigate legal, regulatory, and model risks.

• Allow attorneys to concentrate on legal judgment, strategic thinking, and advisory responsibilities.

⛳️ Requirements

• A minimum of 10 years of experience in Legal Operations, legal technology, process design, finance-related operations, or operational leadership.

• Proven experience in scaling legal operations, legal technology, financial management, and executing data-driven strategies.

• Demonstrated expertise in driving automation and AI initiatives from conception through deployment, governance, adoption, and ROI evaluation.

• Comprehensive understanding of legal workflows including contracts, regulatory issues, litigation, investigations, intake, and outside counsel management.

• Practical experience in optimizing CLM, matter management, spending oversight, intake processes, knowledge management, and AI tools.

• Capability to convert requirements into technical roadmaps and operational strategies.

• Experience in creating metrics, dashboards, controls, and Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).

• Strong communication skills to influence legal leaders, executives, and technical teams.

• Comfort operating in ambiguous environments and leading transformations in rapidly growing settings.

• Experience in the fintech, cryptocurrency, financial services, or regulated sectors is a plus.

• Background in enterprise AI governance, model risk management, or secure AI deployment is advantageous.

• People management experience in Legal Operations or related fields is beneficial.

• Experience in benchmarking Legal Operations practices, tools, and cost structures against industry standards is preferred.

• Ability to work from the designated city and country; sponsorship requirements must be clearly stated.

🏝️ Benefits

• Participation in an equity program.

• Eligibility for a bonus program.

• Wellness allowance provided.

• Comprehensive medical insurance coverage.

• Dental insurance included.

• Vision insurance offered.

• 401(k) retirement plan.

• Commitment to a diverse and inclusive workplace.

• Consistent application of job-related skills or work-style assessments across all candidates.

• Requirement to participate in Kraken product dogfooding after joining.