Chief of Staff (Law Firm - JD Required)

Company Description

Join a growing law practice offering remote work for well-qualified professionals focused on providing 'outside general counsel' services to predominantly CA and NY startups and investors in the emerging companies and funds in the venture capital space. The Executive Assistant will work alongside high-performing attorneys serving many exciting companies, investors, founders, and entrepreneurs from a wide variety of industries and backgrounds. Our firm has a hardworking small firm atmosphere with wonderful career potential. The firm offers competitive compensation, a strong team atmosphere facilitated through the convenience of remote work.

Role Description

This is a full-time, remote Chief of Staff role requiring a Juris Doctor (JD). The Chief of Staff will support firm leadership in managing daily operations, including tracking priorities, coordinating internal and external communications, and ensuring timely follow-through on strategic initiatives. Responsibilities include managing the Managing Attorney inbox and calendar and all associated client workflows throughout the team of 6 attorneys; overseeing project management across client matters; optimizing workflows and workflow management systems; and establishing and coordinating with back office staff to strengthen firm systems and processes around billing, bookkeeping, marketing, and general firm administration. The Chief of Staff will also help refine policies, support hiring and onboarding processes, and contribute to a positive, vibrant team culture.

Qualifications

• Juris Doctor (JD) from an accredited law school; experience or strong interest in impact investing, venture capital, or transactional business counsel.
• Demonstrated ability in project and operations management, including organizing complex workflows, setting priorities, and meeting deadlines in a legal or professional services environment.
• Strong analytical, research, and problem-solving skills, with the ability to synthesize information into clear recommendations for leadership.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including experience drafting memos, reports, presentations, and client-facing materials.
• Proficiency with productivity and collaboration tools (e.g., document management systems, project management software, video conferencing platforms, and spreadsheets).
• Ability to work independently in a remote setting, exercise sound judgment, and maintain discretion with confidential information.
• Demonstrated interpersonal skills, including the ability to build trust, collaborate across roles and levels, and support an inclusive, respectful workplace.
• Prior experience in a law firm, in-house legal department, or professional services organization is preferred; experience in strategy, consulting, or operations is a plus.

Why this role exists

We are hiring one person to serve as the operational right hand to the Managing Attorney and Senior Management to optimize operations and ensure quality of service delivery across our client portfolio. A primary purpose of the role is to deliver intensive, robust executive support with acute attention to detail: managing the Managing Attorney's inbox and calendar, priorities, meetings, follow-up, and client commitments including delegation of workflows to qualified peer attorneys. The role also owns the management and delegation of administrative work that supports the firm's revenue and team, including billing coordination, timekeeping support, client retainer and hour-cap monitoring, onboarding, policies, and internal trackers. Beyond that, this person will coordinate and implement discrete operations improvements across the administrative backend, including a suite of planned AI optimization initiatives.

Role Overview 1.

Executive support (approx. 50%)

• Manage the Managing Attorney's inboxes: triage, prioritize, flag what needs attention, track open loops, and handle or route administrative items where appropriate.
• Keep the Managing Attorney's priorities visible and moving; surface deadlines, unanswered messages, client commitments, and decisions that require attention.
• Coordinate scheduling and meeting logistics, and ensure the Managing Attorney has the context and materials required for each meeting.
• Prepare agendas for internal team meetings, keep meetings on track, capture follow-up items, and monitor completion.
• Track client and matter follow-through at an administrative level, including prompting attorneys when work product or client responses appear to be outstanding.
• Track prospective clients from initial inquiry through engagement, follow-up after introductory calls, coordinating conflict checks, monitoring outstanding decisions and ensuring engagement letters are prepared, sent, signed, and routed for onboarding.
• Draft routine correspondence and follow-up in the firm's voice where appropriate.
• Build and maintain practical triage rules, checklists, templates, and recurring routines so executive support becomes increasingly systematic rather than reactive.
• Maintain the Managing Attorney's time records by reconciling calendars, outboxes, matter activity, and other source information; identify gaps that require his input.

2. Billing, timekeeping, and client budget administration (approx. 20%)

• Onboard and manage an outsourced agency for billing and bookkeeping:
• Run the firm's recurring billing and invoicing cycles, including invoice review, delivery, and administrative collections follow-up.
• Track client retainers, monthly hour limits, and other agreed billing thresholds; flag approaching limits early enough for the responsible attorney to act.
• Prepare or coordinate client communications regarding retainer replenishment, hour caps, and billing status as directed.
• Maintain reliable billing trackers and supporting records and identify recurring bottlenecks that can be simplified or automated.
• Support monthly reporting to firm leadership on collections, outstanding invoices, and billing production by timekeeper. 

3. Firm Marketing and Administration (approx. 20%)

• Develop and manage marketing assets including outsourced marketing vendors.
• Coordinate onboarding and offboarding for attorneys and support staff, including accounts, access, internal guides, and administrative setup.
• Maintain the employee handbook and coordinate periodic updates with appropriate legal or HR guidance where substantive employment-law review is required.
• Build and maintain onboarding resources covering how we work with outside-GC clients, firm drafting preferences, billing practices, templates, and internal processes.
• Maintain administrative policies, forms, and trackers, including a reliable process for PTO requests and usage.
• Coordinate vendors, software subscriptions, renewals, and other recurring firm-administration needs.
• Maintain key operational trackers, including the new-client tracker, and keep information current and usable.
• Support occasional website, engagement-letter, and branding projects as priorities allow.

4. Operations projects and systems implementation (approx. 10%)

• Onboard and manage outsourced agency for operational projects:
• Document current workflows, recurring pain points, dependencies, and requirements before new tools or processes are selected.
• Maintain a prioritized operations roadmap with the Managing Attorney so project work is sequenced against recurring executive-support and billing obligations.
• Research vendors and tools against agreed requirements; coordinate demos, implementation plans, data cleanup, testing, training, and rollout.
• Build and maintain the administrative components of template libraries, SOP repositories, onboarding materials, and shared trackers once substantive structure and ownership are established.
• Project-manage discrete improvements to client intake, engagement-letter workflows, document organization, billing processes and matter tracking.
• Escalate interconnected legal-operations questions rather than solving them piecemeal when they require a broader operating-model decision.

Candidate Qualifications

• Qualified candidates will possess at least 5 years of experience working as an Attorney, Paralegal, Legal Assistant, or Chief of Staff
• Candidate must have a professional work-from-home environment allowing full time remote work
• Candidates must be able to successfully manage competing priorities in a fast-paced environment with exceptional attention to detail.
• Technical computer skills, including a fundamental understanding of and experience with Microsoft Excel and/or Google Sheets, Microsoft Word and/or Google Docs, and Adobe Acrobat is required
• Experience with Quickbooks is required
• An MBA, CPA, business degree, or finance background is strongly preferred in addition to a JD

Compensation

• Compensation is subject to negotiation based on experience and qualifications
• Intended compensation is $140,000-$160,000
• Full benefits including medical, 401k, etc.
• Fully remote full-time role that may require occasional weekend, early morning, or evening work, with East Coast hours serving as the principal working environment