Director of Legal Operations

At Jacobs, we're challenging today to reinvent tomorrow by solving the world's most critical problems for thriving cities, resilient environments, mission-critical outcomes, operational advancement, scientific discovery and cutting-edge manufacturing, turning abstract ideas into realities that transform the world for good.

Your impact

The Director of Legal Operations reports directly to the General Counsel and partners with the Legal Leadership Team to establish and formalize a centralized Legal Operations function by aligning existing capabilities, defining governance, and implementing a scalable operating model across a global legal organization.

We are seeking a collaborative, strategic leader with strong operational, financial, and technology acumen. The ideal candidate has experience building, scaling, or transforming Legal Operations or comparable business operations functions and can translate strategy into sustainable governance, processes, and capabilities. The candidate understands that the Legal Department must manage risk while enabling practical, timely business decisions.

Key responsibilities

Key responsibilities for the Director of Legal Operations include:

Strategic Leadership

• Partner with the General Counsel and legal leadership to set priorities and drive execution against departmental goals.

• Leverage existing Legal Operations maturity assessments and benchmarking data, including Gartner Legal Score results, to identify priorities and guide development of the Legal Operations function.

• Develop and maintain a multi-year Legal Operations roadmap aligned with departmental and company priorities.

• Serve as a trusted advisor by providing insights and practical recommendations to support leadership decisions.

• Translate strategy into actionable plans with clear milestones, accountability, and measurable outcomes.

• Identify opportunities to improve service delivery, strengthen value, and reduce outside legal spend.

Legal Operations & Functional Excellence

• Develop and execute the Legal Operations strategy and roadmap in alignment with departmental and company priorities.

• Design and manage legal intake, triage, and workflow processes to improve responsiveness, prioritization, and visibility into departmental demand.

• Establish and maintain KPIs, dashboards, and reporting to measure workload, service delivery, and budget performance.

• Create and maintain a centralized portfolio of Legal initiatives and support leadership in prioritization and sequencing decisions.

• Leverage data analytics to identify trends, develop actionable insights, and inform decision-making on legal demand, resource allocation, outside counsel performance, service delivery, and operational effectiveness.

• Drive continuous improvement across processes, workflows, and service models.

• Align and integrate existing Legal Operations activities, tools, and processes into a cohesive and scalable framework.

• Strengthen communication, knowledge sharing, and alignment through clear documentation and well-maintained resources.

Financial Management & Vendor Oversight

• Partner with the Legal Department Financial Manager and the Finance organization to support budgeting, forecasting, and resource planning activities.

• Support Legal Department leaders and other stakeholders in outside counsel and vendor management initiatives.

• Provide operational insights, reporting, and business case analysis to support sourcing, investment, and resource decisions.

Technology & Innovation

• Support development and execution of the Legal Department's technology roadmap, including AI implementation, advancement of contract life cycle management (CLM), and enterprise reporting capabilities.

• Partner with Legal, IT, Digital, and business stakeholders to evaluate, implement, optimize, and govern legal technology solutions aligned with departmental priorities.

• Oversee matter lifecycle management, including intake, tracking, reporting, taxonomy, and closeout processes that support transparency and resource planning.

• Partner with IT and other stakeholders on systems integration, data governance, information security, and long-term technology planning.

• Lead change management, training, and adoption efforts for new tools, workflows, and operating models.

• Drive adoption of tools and processes that improve productivity, transparency, reporting, and decision-making.

Communications & Administration

• Support change management and communication efforts associated with new processes, technologies, governance structures, and operating models.

• Promote best practices and help develop department guidelines, policies, training materials, playbooks, and self-service resources.

• Support resource and capacity planning by analyzing workload trends and helping evaluate staffing models, external support, and prioritization decisions.

• Support cross-functional coordination and ensure follow-through on key operational decisions and initiatives.

Additional Responsibilities

• Lead or support additional projects and responsibilities as assigned by the General Counsel.

• Stay current on developments in legal operations, legal technology, and related industry trends to help shape continuous improvement.

Design your career with a company that inspires and empowers you to deliver your best work so you can evolve, grow, and succeed.

• 10+ years of experience in legal operations, law department management, or a related in-house legal function.

• Experience developing roadmaps and execution plans based on operational assessments, benchmarking, or maturity frameworks.

• Demonstrated success managing legal technology, outside counsel programs, budgets, vendors, and cross-functional initiatives.

• Strong understanding of in-house legal department operations, including matter management, contract workflows, legal spend, reporting, and stakeholder service models.

• Proven ability to lead complex projects, manage competing priorities, and drive execution in a fast-paced environment.

• Strong data analytics capabilities, including experience developing dashboards, analyzing trends, interpreting metrics, and translating data into actionable business and operational insights.

• Excellent communication and stakeholder-management skills across legal, business, finance, technology, and executive audiences.

• Strong judgment, discretion, and the ability to manage confidential and privileged information.

• Proficiency with productivity, reporting, and collaboration tools, including the Microsoft Office suite, project management platforms, and dashboarding tools.

Ideally, you'll also have:

• Experience building, scaling, or transforming a legal operations or equivalent function, including establishing processes, governance, and operating models.

• Experience with data analytics, reporting, and insights generation.

• Experience implementing, administering, or optimizing legal technology platforms, including matter management, e-billing, contract lifecycle management, legal intake, document management, or knowledge management systems.

• Experience using Gartner, CLOC, ACC Legal Operations, or similar maturity frameworks to drive organizational improvement and capability development.

• Experience in a multinational organization.

• A project management certification, legal operations certification, MBA, JD, or other relevant advanced credential.

• Experience managing direct reports, consultants, contractors, and cross-functional project teams.

Jacobs is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, or medical conditions related to pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding), age, medical condition, marital or domestic partner status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression and transgender status, mental disability or physical disability, genetic information, military or veteran status, citizenship, low-income status or any other status or characteristic protected by applicable law. Learn more about your rights under Federal EEO laws and supplemental language.