Legal Business Program Manager

Responsibilities

• Advise practice group leaders on legal service provider strategies such as panel optimization and use of alternative legal service providers,assist attorneys and practice group business managers in structuring fee arrangements and, if needed, negotiate and draft statements of work and fee agreements, and continually evaluate CELA’s use of legal service providers to identify trends and opportunities to increase value and reduce costs.
• Legal Service Provider Engagement: CELA employs law firms and alternative legal service providers worldwide. Our team serves as a primary point of contact for these providers.
• Conduct business reviews with those providers with whom CELA does significant business,advise providers on Microsoft policies, and negotiate and draft agreements and statements of work with providers to achieve CELA’s goals.
• Competitive Bidding Programs. CELA’s work is valuable and our team encourages and supports the use of competitive bidding processes such as RFPs and reverse auctions to ensure CELA obtains maximum value for the price it pays.
• Advise practice groups on the use of competitive bidding processes
• Assist attorneys in properly scoping and documenting work for use in those processes, and orchestrate competitive bidding processes as needed.
• Pricing, Fee Arrangements, and Rate Negotiation. CELA does work with hundreds of law firms around the world, and while we pursue alternative fee arrangements as much as possible, hourly rates should be negotiated and managed.
• Work with practice groups and their business managers to structure, negotiate, and memorialize alternative fee arrangements, and oversee our annual rate negotiation program, handle escalation from our rates team, and, as needed, negotiate rates and rate agreements with our law firm partners.
• Reporting, Process Improvement, Technology Platforms. At Microsoft, having a growth mindset is core to our culture.
• Continually evaluate our metrics and reporting strategy and develop new insights to help us improve the performance of Microsoft, CELA, and our team
• Work with other members of our operations and IT teams on reports for the broader department,
• Use Microsoft Power Platform low-code/no-code tools to enhance our programs and processes, and work with multiple stakeholders on the implementation of new technology platforms and change management.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Business, Operations, Finance or related field AND 6+ years work experience in legal operations for a law firm or corporate in-house legal department
  • OR equivalent experience.
• Experience with how to develop, implement, and enhance programs, processes, and workflows.
• Experience in O365 applications, including, but not limited to Word, Excel, Teams, SharePoint, OneNote, and Dynamics CRM.

• Experience in build and design of PowerBI (or similar reporting analytics technology) dashboards for reporting and analysis.
• Experience practicing law as a lawyer, paralegal, or similar.
• Experience with pricing for legal services (hourly and non-hourly models) and aptitude for financial and data analysis.
• Experience negotiating and drafting statements of work, fee arrangements, and RFPs for legal services.
• Experience implementing technology platforms and driving/managing change.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with applicable law, all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.