Legal Operations Director

At IFS you will work in a growing, global enterprise software company built upon committed and empowered colleagues who come to work knowing they are making a difference. We work every day within our single platform and embedded digital innovation to help our customers be their best when it really matters to their customers – at the Moment of Service™. We take pride in ensuring that our employees are able to achieve the company goals as well as develop their career. We believe empowered autonomy, committed colleagues and being part of a winning team are the keys to our success and what makes us great!

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability status.

As the Legal Operations Director in the Legal Offshore Operation Centre (LOC) in Sri Lanka, you will work on leading the LOC team guiding and supporting the following functions. 

Technology & process support responsibilities

• Managing from business perspective technology for legal – including updates/configuration etc. owned by business – requiring some level of technical knowledge:
  • CLM
  • Screening tool
  • Privacy tool
  • Other tools that Legal are using from time to time.
• Developing and implementing a robust technology roadmap that determines what technology is rolled out and when.
• Sourcing and selecting legal software agreed with legal team leadership.
• Evaluating and comparing different technology vendors and ensuring effective onboarding and managing (business side) once a tool has been introduced.

Financial management

• Developing, adapting and optimizing legal budget to ensure efficient and predictable spending.
• Effectively communicating this budget with all relevant parties
• Actively seeking new opportunities to save money and negotiate better rates.

Vendor management

• Performing effective due diligence in order to select the best firms and external counsels.
• Negotiating rates and pricing models with vendors to obtain a more advantageous rate.
• Set up efficient onboarding processes for vendors to ensure value quickly.
• Discovering new opportunities to collaborate, connect and align vendors for more seamless working relationships.
• Manage legal vendors, including renewals.

Cross-functional alignment responsibilities

• Seek ways to align with the functions that have the most direct impact on the legal function, such as IT and finance.
• Finding ways to improve the communication between functions, as well as raising awareness of different individuals and tasks involved in other functions.

Service delivery responsibilities

• Building and maintaining a complementary ecosystem of vendors and maintaining this close-knit network of options
• Breaking large projects down into smaller, connected tasks and allocating these individual tasks to the best-suited vendors.
• Eliminating the need to use expensive and poorly suited legal support.
• Creating and maintaining a legal services map for the department to determine specific areas of need and how they will be resourced.

Communications responsibilities

• Sharing change communications (e.g. technology pilots and training) through Workplace and Teams tools
• Optimizing the tone of communications to make them more effective and engaging.
• Using modern technology to communicate the right messages in the right way and at the right time.

Data analytics responsibilities

• Identify the most relevant and impactful data to collect, monitor, and analyze.
• Conduct thorough data analysis to determine the best course of action in the long term as well as the short term.
• Seek to uncover patterns and hidden opportunities to improve, based on the data collected.

Litigation support responsibilities

• Reviewing and retrieving documents and records in the event of litigation risks
• Implementing tools and processes to minimize the manual labor involved in litigation support.

IP management responsibilities

• Ensure that information relating to IP is readily available to other departments.
• Work with Lawyers to identify ways to support IP tracking and ownership.

Knowledge management responsibilities

• Support the legal team in compiling contract playbooks  and other guides around legal processes, and keeping these up to date.
• Setting up provisions to ensure that information isn’t lost when team members leave or are absent.
• Managing and supporting the management of automated templates for standardized contracts  and other standard documents

Information governance responsibilities

• Creating and maintaining information policies that are free from legal jargon  and accessible to anyone that needs it
• Ensuring that all employees have an appropriate understanding of and access to important policies and procedures.
• Monitor and restrict access to specific information, like confidential documents.

Strategic planning responsibilities

• Identifying the short and mid-term actions that are necessary to achieve long-term objectives and goals.
• Communicating the overarching objectives to the legal team and the departments beyond legal to ensure a coherent approach to these goals.
• Finding ways to embed IFS values into the strategy and ensuring the strategy aligns with both these values and stakeholder interests.

A bachelor's degree in law, or a related field with 5 to 8 years' experience as a legal officer in a firm.

Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

Work effectively individually or in a team-oriented, collaborative environment with great interpersonal and consulting skills.

Ability to work in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment.

Interviews and selections are being made continuously. If you are interested, apply as soon as possible.

As a step in our recruitment process, all final candidates will undergo a background check, to get us an understanding of our future employees.

We respectfully decline all offers of recruitment and/or advertising assistance.

IFS Fact
IFS develops and delivers enterprise software for customers around the world who manufacture and distribute goods, build and maintain assets, and manage service-focused operations. The industry expertise of our people and solutions, together with a commitment to delivering value to every one of our customers, has made IFS a recognized leader and the most recommended supplier in our sector. Our team of 4,000 employees and growing ecosystem of partners support more than 10,000 customers around the world challenge the status quo and realize their competitive advantage. Learn more about how our enterprise software solutions can help your business today at ifs.com .