Legal Operations Manager

Thoughtworks partners with enterprises to create capabilities around digital innovation and transformation.  As a global software consultancy, we help our clients bring new products to market with speed and enable business transformation through our lean techniques, agile practices, and domain expertise in business and technology. Thoughtworks recently became a NASDAQ listed public company.

We are looking for an engaged Legal Operations Manager to support the next stage in the evolution of Thoughtworks legal and compliance function.  We are looking for someone who can bring project management, creative problem solving and innovative solutions to a growing and globally dispersed legal and compliance team. In this role, you will collaborate and coordinate with cross functional business partners to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the legal and compliance team. You will design and implement processes, policies and technology solutions to improve the efficient operation of our team. You will ultimately be responsible for many of the day-to-day functions of the Legal team and report to our Chief Legal Officer and Chief Compliance Officer.

ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Strategic Responsibilities

Develop, implement and enhance the legal and compliance function’s processes, systems, workflows and tools to enhance legal department efficiency and productivity. 

Work collaboratively with the Chief Legal Officer to update and evolve the legal and compliance team strategy including the vision, mission and team annual goals and priorities. Work with members of the team throughout the year to drive, track, and report progress of the plan.

Implement and manage department metrics, benchmarking and reporting.

Coordinate and foster team communications and organize development programs for the legal and compliance team, including leadership team meetings, all hands meetings and training programs. 

Work closely with other team members to continuously improve internal and external commercial contracting processes.

Resource Management and Financial Planning

Design, implement, and oversee an external legal resource management program that includes managed services, vendors, and law firms and tools, policies and processes for outside counsel expenses.

Work with the Chief Legal Officer and regional Heads of Legal, to manage strategic selection of law firms and drive performance of Legal vendors to optimize efficiency and reduce spend, while ensuring quality in services.

Benchmark performance, rates and other engagement models, and negotiate and drive the use of alternative fee structures and billing arrangements and guidelines.

Assist the team with day-to-day department operations, including managing purchase requisitions, payment of all legal bills, general reporting, budgeting, and financial management. 

Advise on the Legal and compliance team’s budget planning, including partnering with the Finance team to monitor budget constraints and actual performance against budgets and forecasts, identify spending trends, potential cost savings, and efficiency opportunities.

Information Technology

Research, recommend, implement and own legal technology solutions, such as contract management, matter management, docketing, e-billing and workflow automation tools, to drive efficiency, collaboration and departmental alignment.

Work collaboratively with other team members to evolve the team’s document management systems and processes to facilitate collaborative sharing of information amongst the legal team. 

Serve as the main point of contact with the Thoughtworks IT team on identifying, implementing, integrating, and optimizing applications and tools, and building internal tools and automation capabilities for the legal and compliance team.

Oversee knowledge management and information sharing by helping centralize, formalize, and update various information that should be accessible to the entire team.

Establish knowledge management content and knowledge sharing capabilities within the legal organization

People Capability Enablement and Office Operations

Work with country-level Human Resources teams to track review cycles across the global legal and compliance team.

Work with the Chief Legal Officer to assess the range of legal roles against defined competencies, identify gaps and define development needs.

Create a legal team enablement plan, associated programs and learning curriculums.

Audit, build/buy, deploy and manage training programs (including classroom, workshop and online).

Work with the team to develop, implement and manage legal team metrics, benchmarking, and reporting. 

Create onboarding mechanisms and templates to help facilitate consistent onboarding practices for new legal team members across the globe to ensure transition is efficient & effective.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• BA or BS
• 5+ years of experience with legal operations and management in-house.
• Proven ability to efficiently and effectively manage the operations of a global Legal Department, including executing change management initiatives. 
• Ownership mentality with ability to work proactively, prioritize and see projects through to completion
• Exceptional communication (written and oral) and interpersonal skills and ability to express ideas effectively in individual and group situations. 
• Exceptional management, prioritization and organizational skills with ability to juggle competing priorities 
• Demonstrate leadership, teamwork and collaboration in a professional setting; respect for all levels of employees.
• A team player that is detail-oriented with an ability to accommodate tight deadlines in a changing and fast-paced environment
• Experience implementing or administering contract management systems along with other legal operations software and processes.
• Proficient in Google Suite of products.

#LI-COE