Legal Operations Jobs for Your Team

If you’re just starting to build out your legal operations function, deciding which roles to fill first can be tricky. In this blog, we outline the most essential legal operations jobs and functions, and guide you through the key responsibilities of your legal operations team. We also unpack exactly what candidates should bring to the table to meet the specific job role requirements.

What is a Legal Operations Role?

Let’s start with the basics: The legal operations function sits at the intersection of law, business, and technology. Instead of practicing law directly, legal operations professionals focus on the systems, tools, tech, and processes that keep the legal department running smoothly.

And, with 83% of legal teams expecting the demand for legal services to grow in the coming years, that kind of support is critical to ensuring effective legal service delivery.

Core Legal Operations Responsibilities

Each legal operations role comes with its own set of responsibilities, but there are also core responsibilities that span the entire legal operations team. These include:

• Budgeting and Managing Legal Spend: Members of the legal ops team are typically responsible for tracking and managing legal spend, and finding opportunities for improving the budget.
• Vendor and Contract Management: The legal operations function is also involved in vendor management and developing the legal department’s playbook of vendor-management strategies.
• Reporting, Analytics, and Strategy: Legal ops professionals provide data-driven insights that inform improvements and strategic decision-making for the broader legal team. That includes analyzing how legal matters are handled and how the team performs as a whole.
• Workflow Optimization: The legal ops team is responsible for streamlining and improving workflows. Often, this involves using insights derived during data analysis and implementing new tools or tech, based on the department’s most pressing needs.
• Technology Adoption, Integration, and Management: Finally, legal operations professionals are often responsible for selecting and implementing new technology solutions, like matter management, e-billing software, and legal AI.

Key Legal Operations Jobs and Roles

With that background, it’s time to get down to the structure of your core legal operations team. Here are some of the most common roles in a legal ops team.

Director of Legal Operations

A Director of Legal Operations is responsible for managing the entire legal operations team and overseeing the day-to-day operations of the legal department. They work closely with senior attorneys and management to develop and implement strategic legal operations. This includes managing legal spend and ensuring the company’s regulatory compliance. In addition, the Director of Legal Ops typically needs to liaise with leadership in other teams and to help the broader business meet critical objectives, so the role requires a nuanced understanding of different business functions.

In larger teams, the day-to-day management aspect of this role may fall to a Legal Operations Manager, with the Director focusing more on big-picture, strategic initiatives and decision-making.

When hiring a Director of Legal Operations, look for:

Candidates with experience in managing teams and developing effective legal operations strategies. They should possess strong communication skills, experience working with senior management, change management, and proven leadership capabilities. A law degree and extensive experience working in the legal industry are usually required.

Director of Legal Operations salary:

Compensation for heads of legal operations varies by legal department size. For smaller teams (<10 people), total compensation can range from $123,000 to $500,000. For larger teams (50+ individuals) the amount can range from $194,000 to $790,000.

Legal Operations Analyst

A Legal Operations Analyst is responsible for analyzing operational data and making recommendations to improve the legal team’s performance. They gather and analyze data related to legal spend, matter management, and other essential legal ops metrics. Using the insights gained from this data, legal ops analysts identify opportunities to increase the efficiency of the legal ops team’s processes and workflows, including ways to reduce costs.

When hiring a Legal Operations Analyst, look for:

Candidates with a background in data analysis or business operations. They should have experience working with legal technology, such as e-billing and matter management systems. A bachelor’s degree in a related field is advantageous, though a strong analytics background may be a more important consideration. Experience in the legal industry as well as with AI tools is a plus.

Legal Operations Analyst salary:

Legal Operations Analyst salaries can vary based on legal department size, geographic location, years of experience, and other factors. The average salary range runs from $56,328 to $85,371.

Legal Operations Specialist

A Legal Operations Specialist manages specific legal operations functions, including matter management, e-billing, and contract management. They ensure that these functions run smoothly and efficiently and recommend improvements to existing processes. They are also typically deeply involved in evaluating new technology vendors and tools to see whether they’re a good fit for the team.

When hiring a Legal Operations Specialist, look for:

Candidates with experience in the specific area of legal operations that requires their assistance. For example, if you need help managing contracts, look for candidates with experience in contract management. A bachelor’s degree in a related field and experience in the legal industry are advantageous, but not always a prerequisite — relevant experience across other departments or business functions should also be considered. Knowledge of the latest legal technology trends and the ability to optimize workflows with AI deployments are significant advantages.

Legal Operations Specialist salary:

The average Legal Operations Specialist salary is $68,426 a year, with pay typically falling between $38,000 and $103,000 a year based on factors like legal department size, geographic location, years of experience, and education.

Legal Operations Associate

A Legal Operations Associate is typically an entry-level position within a legal operations team. Workers in this legal operations role provide administrative support to the broader team, including data entry, document management, and scheduling. They may also assist with legal research and drafting legal documents.

When hiring a Legal Operations Associate:

Look for candidates with excellent organizational skills and a strong attention to detail. They should have experience with administrative tasks and be comfortable working with legal technology, such as document management systems. A bachelor’s degree in a legal or legal-adjacent field is a plus but not required, with many legal ops associates coming to the role from adjacent functions, like project management or procurement. Experience with AI tools and more general legal technology should also be considered.

Legal Operations Associate salary:

The average Legal Operations Associate salary is $65,000 a year, with pay typically falling between $52,000 and $80,000 a year based on factors like legal department size, geographic location, years of experience, and education.

Specialized Functions and Building A Legal Operations Team

In addition to the functions listed above, you might also need to fill more specialized roles, like Outside Counsel Manager or Legal Technology Manager — especially within larger legal teams. You should also give thought to how legal roles are filled if you’re working in a hybrid workplace, and whether it makes sense to offer remote legal operations jobs to increase your candidate pool.

If you need help strategizing how to build out your legal operations function, we recommend reading our in-depth guide to legal ops team structure. You can also refer to our 2025 Legal Operations Compensation Report for more up-to-date insights on compensation for legal ops teams.

The Role of AI in Your Legal Operations Function

There’s no ignoring the fact that AI tools directly address several of the core drivers of legal operations excellence: streamlining costs, improving efficiency, and enhancing the quality of legal services.

For legal leaders this raises two pressing questions: “What role should AI play in my legal ops team?” and “How can I position the legal ops team to lead the charge in AI adoption?”

Here are some areas where your legal operations function can deploy AI for greatest impact:

• Automating repetitive tasks: One of the best applications for AI tools is automating repetitive legal tasks, such as contract drafting, data entry, procurement, and billing. Note that some of these tasks traditionally fall to entry-level legal workers, like paralegals, so it’s important to redefine existing entry-level roles at the same time as deploying AI improvements.
• Using AI to enhance data analysis and decision-making: AI tools can be used to analyze large volumes of data and access data quickly and efficiently. These capabilities make these tools a significant value-add for legal analysts, allowing legal leaders to plan department operations and capital deployment more strategically, based on in-depth forecasts and more accurate budgets.
• Defining an outside counsel AI strategy: Smart AI adoption is not just about how your team handles this tech. Outside counsel is increasingly adopting AI tools as well, and in-house teams need to set clear guidelines and expectations around how these tools are used in their matters. Establishing a proactive framework for AI use, including safety guardrails and measurements of AI impact is a must. Our guide to outside counsel AI strategy unpacks the details.

Conclusion

Building a practical legal operations function starts with hiring the right people for your team. Look for candidates who bring relevant experience and a strong understanding of legal operations responsibilities to the table — along with a passion for improving the legal function. At the same time, give careful thought to tech deployments and how new technologies fit into your overall legal ops plan.

Get it right, and you build a legal operations team that serves as a strategic partner to the legal function and the rest of the business. One that drives efficiency, elevates legal service delivery, and produces real and measurable value.

Keen to learn more about how legal tech can support your new legal ops team? Let’s chat.