Senior Legal Operations Specialist

Senior Legal Operations Specialist
San Mateo, CA (hybrid) - will require coming into our offices 2 times per week

Role Overview: Sony Interactive Entertainment's Legal Operations team is looking for a Legal Operations Program Specialist, Vendor Management, to support the Legal Department’s vendor portfolio, with emphasis on outside counsel vendor management. In this role, you will be responsible for managing and optimizing relationships with our external vendors. This role involves strategic oversight of engagements, performance evaluation, and ensuring that our external legal partners provide the highest level of service and value. You will collaborate closely with internal stakeholders to ensure that our needs are being met efficiently and effectively.

Relationship Management:

• Develop and maintain strong, strategic relationships with billing departments to foster collaboration and trust.
• Act as a liaison between internal Legal teams and vendors to ensure seamless information flow.

Engagement Oversight:

• Collaborate with internal Legal teams to understand their needs, project scopes, and identify suitable outside counsel for specific matters.
• Ensure alignment of outside counsel services with business objectives and Legal requirements by conducting needs assessments and regular check-ins.
• Manage the onboarding process for new vendors, ensuring they understand expectations and procedures.

Cost Management:

• Analyze billing practices, scrutinize invoices, and manage legal spend associated with outside counsel, identifying opportunities for cost savings and efficiencies.
• Negotiate fee structures, billing terms, and other contractual arrangements with vendors to maximize value.

Reporting & Analytics:

• Prepare and present regular reports on outside counsel performance, engagement metrics, and legal spend to senior management and stakeholders.
• Utilize data analytics to identify trends, performance gaps, and opportunities for improvement in outside counsel relationships.

Accountability & Performance Evaluation:

• Monitor and assess the performance of vendors against established service level agreements (SLAs) and key performance indicators (KPIs).
• Conduct regular reviews of outside counsel engagements, including feedback sessions and performance evaluations, to identify strengths and areas for improvement.
• Implement strategies to enhance vendor quality and efficiencies.
• Develop and implement budgetary controls and processes to better manage vendor spend.

Compliance & Risk Management:

• Ensure that vendors adhere to company policies, compliance requirements, and best practices in risk management.
• Conduct due diligence on outside counsel to assess their capabilities, areas of expertise, and risk profiles.

Training & Development:

• Facilitate training sessions for internal teams on best practices for managing vendors and outside counsel relationships, including communication and performance feedback.
• Keep internal stakeholders informed about changes in outside counsel practices, capabilities, and offerings through regular updates and workshops.

Legal Operations Team Support

• Advise on strategic ad-hoc projects and initiatives.
• Support existing tools and processes.
  

Skills and Qualifications

• Extensive experience in vendor management is preferred but not required.
• Highly analytical with mastery of advanced data functions (pivots, vlook, formulas, etc.).
• Willingness to ramp up on new technologies and act as a subject matter expert (e.g., e-Billing, SAP, CLM, Matter Management, etc.)
• Advanced Office 365 experience (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.).
• Excellent negotiation, communication, and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to analyze financial data and legal billing practices effectively.
• Ability to communicate insights clearly, both in writing and verbally, to a diverse audience, accounting for varying subject matter backgrounds.
• Strong organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple relationships and projects simultaneously.
• Ability to interpret and negotiate basic engagement terms.
• Proven ability to effectively collaborate with internal teams.
• Ideally a strong understanding of legal services, law firm operations, and the legal industry landscape.
• Experience in a corporate outside counsel management function or law firm equivalent (pricing, budgeting, project management, etc.) preferred but not required.
  
  

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