Legal Operations Specialist

Summary:

Gibson Dunn is a leading global law firm, advising clients on significant transactions and disputes. Our exceptional teams craft and deploy creative legal strategies that are meticulously tailored to every matter, however complex or high-stakes. The Firm's work is distinguished by a unique combination of precision and vision.

Based in the U.S., the Legal Operations Specialist will serve as a project manager facilitating attorney transitions across the Firm. Every lateral arrival, secondment, and departure is a discrete project, and the Specialist will act as its central clearing house — aligning the parties, determining how the work should proceed using the Firm’s process roadmaps as a framework, and driving each transition to completion on schedule.

The role helps ensure that the Firm delivers the highest quality work product to its clients by enabling successful processes for attorneys as they move into, through, and out of the Firm. Each Specialist will carry a primary transition type and cross-train across the others on the team, allowing the function to maintain coverage and continuity through absences and periods of higher volume.

This role reports to the Manager, Onboarding and Offboarding.

Responsibilities include:

• Serving as the central point of coordination for each assigned attorney transition (a lateral arrival, secondment, or departure), from initiation through completion.
• Planning and directing each transition, adapting the process roadmap to the circumstances of the matter, and setting and managing timelines with the parties involved.
• Liaising with the stakeholders each transition touches, including Recruiting, HR, Conflicts and New Business Intake (NBI), the Office of General Counsel, Finance, Information Services, Practice Management, and Office Operations, to resolve dependencies and clear obstacles.
• Carrying a primary transition type while maintaining proficiency across the others, and providing coverage and continuity during team absences or periods of higher volume.
• Exercising independent judgment in the handling of each transition, and escalating sensitive or high-risk matters as needed.
• Evaluating the effectiveness of processes in practice and developing and recommending improvements to the playbooks and roadmaps that support the function.
• Maintaining accurate and current records across the team’s trackers, dashboards, and matter and NBI systems.
• Initiating and coordinating any data transfer arising from a transition (e.g., portable work product and precedent banks on arrival; personal data, client files, and precedent banks on departure), in coordination with Information Governance and Information Services, who action the transfer.
• Managing the operational setup of an incoming lateral’s book of business through to opened and billable, including NBI, conflicts clearance, matter opening, client-file import mapping, and engagement letter and fee coordination.
• Serving as the lateral’s primary contact for all NBI matters during the first four to six months following arrival, providing attentive, concierge-level support.
• Analyzing NBI process data for the Firm’s lateral populations and providing insights and recommendations to leadership.
• Facilitating the full secondment lifecycle, including placement, agreement execution, extensions, active-management logistics, and return.
• Tracking secondments globally and partnering with Practice Group Managers, Business Development, and Career Services to offer useful insights and data-backed conclusions.
• Ensuring information security and governance procedures are executed with each secondment.
• Acting as the subject matter expert for secondees, advising on questions and concerns as they arise.
• Managing each partner departure, including coordination, internal communications and outreach, transition documentation, and alignment of the parties through the exit.
• Facilitating the partner retirement process, working closely with relevant teams to transfer matters and client relationships.
• Playing a central role in the development and execution of a new global associate departure process, including developing matter-transition plans, notifying the attorneys-in-charge of affected matters, coordinating with the departing associate so that work product and data are preserved, and keeping the parties informed throughout.
• Performing other duties as assigned.

Qualifications:

• Strong project management and organizational skills, with the ability to manage several concurrent transitions without loss of detail.
• Sound independent judgment, including a clear sense of when a matter should be escalated.
• Ability to communicate clearly and professionally, both orally and in writing, including with partners and senior stakeholders.
• Discretion and care in handling confidential and sensitive information.
• Willingness to cross-train across transition types rather than remain in a single area.
• Familiarity with conflicts and new business intake systems (e.g., Intapp) and document management platforms (e.g., iManage) preferred.

Experience:

• 3 to 5 years of experience in legal operations, law firm administration, project management, or a comparable professional services environment where accuracy and deadlines are critical.
• Demonstrated record of coordinating multi-party projects from initiation through completion.
• Direct experience with lateral integration, secondments, or attorney departures preferred.
• Experience working across business services functions within a law firm preferred.

Gibson Dunn will consider for employment qualified Applicants with Criminal Histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of local law.

Compensation & Benefits:

The annual compensation range for this position is $100,000- $115,000. The salary offered within this range will depend upon qualifications and other operational considerations.

Benefits offered for this position include health care; retirement benefits; paid days off, including sick time, and vacation time; parental leave; basic life insurance; Flexible Spending Accounts; as well as discretionary, performance-based bonuses.

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