Legal Ops Specialist

Overview

About the Role

We are seeking a detail-oriented and highly organized Legal Operations Specialist to support the Legal Department in managing legal operations, technology, spend, matter management, outside counsel processes, and reporting.

The successful candidate will work closely with Legal, Finance, Procurement, business stakeholders, and external law firms to ensure efficient and accurate management of legal matters and legal spend. This role will also support the administration and continuous improvement of legal technology platforms and operational processes.

Key Responsibilities

1. Legal eBilling & Legal Spend Management

• Manage day-to-day administration of the Legal Department's electronic billing and legal spend management processes.
• Review and validate outside counsel invoices for compliance with billing guidelines, negotiated rates, billing arrangements, and applicable policies.
• Monitor invoice submissions, approvals, rejections, adjustments, and payment status.
• Support implementation and maintenance of automated invoice validation and auto-rejection rules.
• Identify billing discrepancies, duplicate invoices, rate issues, timekeeper exceptions, and other billing violations.
• Work with law firms to resolve invoice and billing issues.
• Monitor outside counsel spend against budgets and approved matter estimates.
• Support development of cost-saving initiatives and identify opportunities to improve legal spend efficiency.

2. Matter Management

• Maintain accurate and complete legal matter records within the Legal Department's matter management system.
• Support matter opening, updates, closures, categorization, and data quality activities.
• Ensure matters are appropriately tagged by region, legal lead, matter type, agreement type, business function, and other required fields.
• Conduct periodic data cleansing and quality reviews of matter management data.
• Support matter intake and triage processes and ensure requests are routed to the appropriate Legal team member.
• Monitor aging and inactive matters and coordinate with Legal stakeholders for appropriate closure or follow-up.

3. Legal Accruals & Forecasting

• Coordinate monthly, quarterly, and year-end legal accrual processes with Legal, Finance, and external counsel.
• Collect and validate accrual estimates from law firms and internal Legal stakeholders.
• Track actual spend against accruals and identify significant variances.
• Support forecasting of legal spend and provide analysis of budget versus actual expenditure.
• Prepare accrual reports and supporting information for Finance and Legal leadership.
• Assist with year-end close and audit-related requests.

4. Outside Counsel & Vendor Management

• Support onboarding and offboarding of external law firms and legal service providers.
• Coordinate law firm setup across legal technology, eBilling, procurement, and vendor management systems.
• Maintain law firm information, billing arrangements, rate cards, matter references, and other relevant records.
• Support outside counsel guideline compliance.
• Coordinate annual rate submissions, rate reviews, and rate validation processes.
• Work with Procurement and Finance on legal vendor management and commercial arrangements.

5. Legal Operations Reporting & Analytics

• Prepare regular and ad-hoc reports for Legal leadership and regional Legal teams.
• Develop and maintain dashboards and reports covering:
  • Legal spend
  • Outside counsel spend
  • Matter volumes
  • Matter types and categories
  • Agreement types
  • Legal team workload
  • Budget versus actual spend
  • Accruals and forecasts
  • Invoice savings and rejections
• Analyze data to identify trends, risks, inefficiencies, and opportunities for process improvement.
• Support Legal leadership with data-driven insights and recommendations.

6. Legal Technology & Process Improvement

• Support administration and optimization of Legal technology platforms, including matter management, eBilling, CLM, document management, and contract automation systems.
• Work with Legal Technology and IT teams to troubleshoot system issues and implement enhancements.
• Support user testing, system upgrades, data migration, and new functionality implementation.
• Identify opportunities to automate manual Legal Operations processes.
• Create and maintain process documentation, standard operating procedures, and user guidance.
• Support continuous improvement initiatives across the Legal Department.

7. Data Management & Governance

• Maintain high-quality and accurate Legal Operations data across relevant systems.
• Perform periodic data audits and identify missing, duplicate, or incorrectly categorized records.
• Support data migration, cleansing, and reconciliation activities.
• Ensure appropriate controls are followed for legal matter, vendor, invoice, and spend data.
• Assist with reporting requirements, management reviews, and audit requests.

8. Stakeholder Management

• Collaborate with Legal Counsel, Legal Assistants, Finance, Procurement, Accounts Payable, IT, and business stakeholders.
• Act as a point of contact for operational queries relating to legal matters, invoices, vendors, and Legal systems.
• Work with external law firms to resolve operational and billing-related issues.
• Provide training and guidance to Legal users on relevant Legal Operations processes and systems.

Responsibilities

About the Role

We are seeking a detail-oriented and highly organized Legal Operations Specialist to support the Legal Department in managing legal operations, technology, spend, matter management, outside counsel processes, and reporting.

The successful candidate will work closely with Legal, Finance, Procurement, business stakeholders, and external law firms to ensure efficient and accurate management of legal matters and legal spend. This role will also support the administration and continuous improvement of legal technology platforms and operational processes.

Key Responsibilities

1. Legal eBilling & Legal Spend Management

• Manage day-to-day administration of the Legal Department's electronic billing and legal spend management processes.
• Review and validate outside counsel invoices for compliance with billing guidelines, negotiated rates, billing arrangements, and applicable policies.
• Monitor invoice submissions, approvals, rejections, adjustments, and payment status.
• Support implementation and maintenance of automated invoice validation and auto-rejection rules.
• Identify billing discrepancies, duplicate invoices, rate issues, timekeeper exceptions, and other billing violations.
• Work with law firms to resolve invoice and billing issues.
• Monitor outside counsel spend against budgets and approved matter estimates.
• Support development of cost-saving initiatives and identify opportunities to improve legal spend efficiency.

2. Matter Management

• Maintain accurate and complete legal matter records within the Legal Department's matter management system.
• Support matter opening, updates, closures, categorization, and data quality activities.
• Ensure matters are appropriately tagged by region, legal lead, matter type, agreement type, business function, and other required fields.
• Conduct periodic data cleansing and quality reviews of matter management data.
• Support matter intake and triage processes and ensure requests are routed to the appropriate Legal team member.
• Monitor aging and inactive matters and coordinate with Legal stakeholders for appropriate closure or follow-up.

3. Legal Accruals & Forecasting

• Coordinate monthly, quarterly, and year-end legal accrual processes with Legal, Finance, and external counsel.
• Collect and validate accrual estimates from law firms and internal Legal stakeholders.
• Track actual spend against accruals and identify significant variances.
• Support forecasting of legal spend and provide analysis of budget versus actual expenditure.
• Prepare accrual reports and supporting information for Finance and Legal leadership.
• Assist with year-end close and audit-related requests.

4. Outside Counsel & Vendor Management

• Support onboarding and offboarding of external law firms and legal service providers.
• Coordinate law firm setup across legal technology, eBilling, procurement, and vendor management systems.
• Maintain law firm information, billing arrangements, rate cards, matter references, and other relevant records.
• Support outside counsel guideline compliance.
• Coordinate annual rate submissions, rate reviews, and rate validation processes.
• Work with Procurement and Finance on legal vendor management and commercial arrangements.

5. Legal Operations Reporting & Analytics

• Prepare regular and ad-hoc reports for Legal leadership and regional Legal teams.
• Develop and maintain dashboards and reports covering:
  • Legal spend
  • Outside counsel spend
  • Matter volumes
  • Matter types and categories
  • Agreement types
  • Legal team workload
  • Budget versus actual spend
  • Accruals and forecasts
  • Invoice savings and rejections
• Analyze data to identify trends, risks, inefficiencies, and opportunities for process improvement.
• Support Legal leadership with data-driven insights and recommendations.

6. Legal Technology & Process Improvement

• Support administration and optimization of Legal technology platforms, including matter management, eBilling, CLM, document management, and contract automation systems.
• Work with Legal Technology and IT teams to troubleshoot system issues and implement enhancements.
• Support user testing, system upgrades, data migration, and new functionality implementation.
• Identify opportunities to automate manual Legal Operations processes.
• Create and maintain process documentation, standard operating procedures, and user guidance.
• Support continuous improvement initiatives across the Legal Department.

7. Data Management & Governance

• Maintain high-quality and accurate Legal Operations data across relevant systems.
• Perform periodic data audits and identify missing, duplicate, or incorrectly categorized records.
• Support data migration, cleansing, and reconciliation activities.
• Ensure appropriate controls are followed for legal matter, vendor, invoice, and spend data.
• Assist with reporting requirements, management reviews, and audit requests.

8. Stakeholder Management

• Collaborate with Legal Counsel, Legal Assistants, Finance, Procurement, Accounts Payable, IT, and business stakeholders.
• Act as a point of contact for operational queries relating to legal matters, invoices, vendors, and Legal systems.
• Work with external law firms to resolve operational and billing-related issues.
• Provide training and guidance to Legal users on relevant Legal Operations processes and systems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Legal Operations, Business Administration, Finance, Law, Management, or a related discipline.
• 3–5 years of experience in Legal Operations, Legal Spend Management, Legal eBilling, law firm billing, legal administration, or a related function.
• Hands-on experience with electronic billing / legal spend management systems.
• Experience managing or supporting outside counsel invoices and legal spend.
• Experience with legal matter management systems and maintaining matter data.
• Experience with legal accruals, budget tracking, forecasting, and variance analysis.
• Strong Excel skills, including PivotTables, XLOOKUP/VLOOKUP, SUMIFS, data analysis, and reporting.
• Experience preparing management reports and analyzing operational or financial data.
• Strong attention to detail and ability to manage large volumes of data accurately.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to work independently, prioritize multiple requests, and meet deadlines.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with legal technology platforms such as Brightflag, HighQ, Legal Tracker, Onit, SimpleLegal, CounselLink, Luminance, Lexion, or similar platforms.
• Experience with CLM (Contract Lifecycle Management) systems.
• Experience with Coupa, SAP, Ariba, or other procurement/ERP systems.
• Experience with Power BI or other business intelligence/reporting tools.
• Experience supporting law firm rate negotiations, rate validation, or outside counsel guideline compliance.
• Experience with legal spend optimization and identifying cost-saving opportunities.
• Experience supporting Legal Operations transformation, system implementation, or data migration projects.
• Knowledge of legal department processes and outside counsel management.

Company Description

Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) is a global leader in life sciences and diagnostics, dedicated to accelerating the benefits of pioneering science through analytical technologies, informatics, and service. With a focus on regulated, high-volume testing environments, our innovative portfolio harnesses deep scientific expertise across chemistry, physics, and biology. We collaborate with customers around the world to advance the release of effective, high-quality medicines, ensure the safety of food and water, and drive better patient outcomes by detecting diseases earlier, managing routine infections, and combating antibiotic resistance. Through a shared culture of relentless innovation, our passionate team of ~16,000 colleagues turn scientific challenges into breakthroughs that improve lives worldwide. 

 

 

 

Diversity and inclusion are fundamental to our core values at Waters Corporation. It benefits our employees, our products, our customers and our community. Waters complies with all applicable federal, state, and local laws. Qualified applicants are considered without regard to sex, race, color, ancestry, national origin, citizenship status, religion, age, marital status (including civil unions), military service, veteran status, pregnancy (including childbirth and related medical conditions), genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, legally recognized disability, domestic violence victim status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Waters is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. All hiring decisions are based solely on qualifications, merit, and business needs at the time.