Manager of Identity and Access Management ("IAM

Position summary:

Cooley is seeking a Manager of Identity & Access Management to join the Security team. Cooley Technology embraces a culture of customer service excellence, and all members of the department are expected to move this agenda forward. To that end the Manager of Identity and Access Management ("IAM") leads the firm's identity and access management program, providing strategic direction and operational oversight across identity platforms and access controls.

This role is accountable for Microsoft Entra  (Azure AD), Active Directory, Privileged Access Management, Identity Governance, Cloud Identity ("AWS"), and Certificate Lifecycle Management. IAM Management ensures secure, compliant, and efficient access to firm systems, applications, and data by managing user identities, authentication, authorization, and lifecycle processes. This role partners closely with Cyber Security, Technology, HR, and business stakeholders to reduce risk, support regulatory and audit requirements, and enable business operations.

This hands‑on leadership role will provide both strategic direction and day‑to‑day operational management. Specific duties and responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Lead the firm’s Identity and Access (IAM) program, defining strategy, multi‑year roadmap, and operating model across workforce, privileged, cloud, and directory identities
• Provider overall ownership of IAM risk, governance, and control effectiveness, ensuring access to systems and data is secure, compliant, and auditable
• Act as the primary IAM authority and escalation point, partnering with Cybersecurity, Technology, HR, and business stakeholders to enable access while reducing security and operational risk
• Oversee Microsoft Entra  (Azure AD) and on‑prem Active Directory, including identity lifecycle management, authentication and authorization models, directory hygiene, and enterprise account management processes
• Lead the Privileged Access Management ("PAM") program, including privileged account onboarding, credential vaulting and rotation, access approvals, break‑glass procedures, and ongoing governance aligned to least privileged principles
• Establish and operate identity governance processes, including joiner/mover/leaver workflows, access requests, periodic access reviews, exception handling, and remediation tracking
• Define and enforce authentication standards including MFA strategy, coverage, exceptions, and conditional access controls, across workforce and privileged identities
• Define and govern cloud identity practices, with a focus on Entra  AWS IAM roles, policies, federation patterns, and secure access models for human and workload identities
• Own certificate lifecycle management, including inventory, ownership assignment, issuance standards, renewals, revocation, and automation to prevent outages and reduce cryptographic risk
• Establish IAM operational cadence and metrics, including intake and prioritization, change coordination, incident support, KPI reporting, and continuous process improvement
• Manage IAM vendors, tooling, documentation, and runbooks, ensuring solutions remain effective, scalable, and aligned with firm standards and evolving security needs
• Ensure high availability and resilience of IAM services to support 24/7 global legal operations
• Serve as direct supervisor and mentor to direct reports
• Provide day‑to‑day supervision of direct reports, ensure compliance with assigned work hours and monitor for compliance with all firm and department policies. Manage staffing coverage, review and process time logs/time off requests
• Support business professional development and continued educational opportunities
• In collaboration with immediate supervisor and central HR, participate in hiring, performance appraisals, counseling, termination and other employee lifecycle events
• All other duties as assigned or required

Required
:

• After orientation at Cooley LLP, exhibit proficiency in the Microsoft Office suite, iManage and other firm applications
• Ability to work extended and/or weekend hours, as required
• Ability to travel, as required
• 5+ years applicable…