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…