Legal Transformation, MD

State Street; Greater London; On-site; GBP 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible work-life support

Paid volunteer days

Vibrant employee networks

Job summary

State Street is seeking a seasoned transformation leader to set vision, drive execution, and partner with Legal and business teams to deliver measurable outcomes. This player-coach role requires deep legal industry experience and hands-on deployment of legal technology at scale.

You will own the transformation portfolio, lead a lean team, and partner with Contracting and BI leadership to align roadmaps and drive adoption across the enterprise.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of progressive leadership experience in transformation within the legal industry (in-house, law firm, ALSP, or legal-focused consulting).
• Proven track record of end-to-end process transformation in contracting, litigation support, advisory workflows, or legal operations with measurable outcomes.
• Hands-on experience deploying legal technology at scale (CLM, e-billing, knowledge management, GenAI/agentic AI).
• Agile delivery leadership in non-engineering environments (scrum/Kanban cadences).
• Strong change management in professional services or regulated environments.
• Experience operating in regulated contexts with controls-heavy processes.
• Financial acumen to build business cases and track run-rate productivity.
• Data literacy with analytics, process mining, and AI-driven insights.

Responsibilities

• Set and drive the transformation agenda with a sequenced roadmap and measurable outcomes.
• Own the portfolio view and ensure dependencies, investments, and outcomes are aligned.
• Lead end-to-end process redesign across core legal workflows.
• Own the legal technology agenda and ensure successful adoption of tools.
• Run an agile delivery model with transparent progress for leadership.
• Partner with Contracting and BI leaders to align roadmaps and data insights.
• Coach and develop a lean transformation team while handling high-impact workstreams.
• Drive change management with training and reinforcement for attorneys and staff.
• Collaborate across Finance, Risk, Compliance, Technology, and Procurement.

Skills

Executive presence

Strategic vision

Change management

Cross-functional collaboration

Data fluency

Agile delivery

Vendor and ecosystem partnership

People leadership

Tools

GenAI

Agentic AI

CLM platforms

e-billing systems

Knowledge management

Job description

Reshape how legal services are delivered across the enterprise — through process redesign, AI-enabled workflows, agentic capabilities, and a modernized operating model. We are seeking a leader to set vision, drive execution, and partner across Legal and the business to deliver measurable outcomes.

This is a player-coach role for a seasoned transformation leader who has done this work inside the legal industry — someone who knows where the friction lives in legal processes, has hands‑on experience deploying legal technology at scale, and can move fluently between executive strategy conversations and the day-to-day mechanics of delivery.

The role sits at the center of a connected leadership team: you will own the transformation portfolio holistically, working in close partnership with the leader of Contracting and Contracting Transformation and the leader of Business Intelligence and Data).

What You’ll Do

• Set and drive the transformation agenda. Translate the Legal Department’s strategic priorities into a clear, sequenced transformation roadmap with measurable productivity, quality, and risk outcomes across the full portfolio.
• Own the portfolio view. Provide oversight, sequencing, and integration across all transformation workstreams — including contracting transformation — ensuring dependencies are managed, investments are prioritized, and outcomes are delivered.
• Lead end-to-end process transformation. Redesign core legal processes (matter management, vendor management, advisory workflows, and others) using lean and design-thinking principles — eliminating waste, standardizing where it matters, and building in controls.
• Own the legal technology agenda. Partner with IT, Procurement, and external vendors to evaluate, deploy, and adopt legal tech (matter management, e‑billing, knowledge management, GenAI, and agentic AI platforms). Ensure tools land with users and deliver promised value.
• Run an agile delivery model. Establish and operate an agile cadence (sprints, backlogs, demos, retros) that gives leadership visibility into progress and empowers teams to move quickly.
• Partner closely with Contracting and Business Intelligence leadership. Operate as a tight leadership trio — aligning roadmaps, sharing capacity, and ensuring data and insights flow into every transformation decision.
• Lead a small, high-performing team — and roll up your sleeves. Coach and develop a lean team of transformation professionals while personally leading the most complex or executive‑facing workstreams.
• Drive change management and adoption. Build the communications, training, and reinforcement mechanisms required to land change with attorneys and legal professionals — including those who are skeptical of process and technology.
• Partner across the enterprise. Collaborate with Finance, Risk, Compliance, Technology, Procurement, and business units to align transformation efforts with broader enterprise priorities.
• Communicate with executives. Prepare and deliver materials for the General Counsel, Executive Committee, and senior business leaders that frame decisions clearly and surface tradeoffs.
• Measure what matters. Partner with Business Intelligence to build the metrics, dashboards, and reporting that demonstrate productivity gains, run‑rate impact, and quality outcomes.

What You Bring

Required Experience

• 15+ years of progressive experience, including significant time leading transformation within the legal industry (in‑house legal department, law firm, ALSP, or legal‑focused consulting practice).
• Demonstrated track record of process transformation in legal — contracting, litigation support, advisory workflows, or legal operations — with quantifiable productivity and quality outcomes.
• Hands‑on experience deploying legal technology at scale: CLM platforms, matter/e‑billing systems, knowledge management, and GenAI/agentic AI tools.
• Agile methodology experience — comfortable running scrum/Kanban cadences and scaling agile in a non‑engineering environment.
• Proven change management track record in professional services or regulated environments
• Experience operating in a regulated environment and transforming within a controls‑heavy context.
• Financial acumen — able to build business cases, defend investment asks, and track run‑rate productivity outcomes.
• Data fluency — comfortable working with workforce analytics, process mining outputs, and AI‑generated insights to inform decisions.
• Track record of working with outside counsel and ALSPs, including driving vendor discipline and value.
• Experience leading and developing teams as a player‑coach.

Skills & Attributes

• Strong executive presence and communication — able to engage credibly with the General Counsel, Executive Committee, and senior business leaders.
• Influencing without authority — builds coalitions across Legal, Technology, Finance, and the business.
• Strategic vision paired with operational rigor — sees the destination and builds the path to get there.
• Enterprise mindset — applies a shareholder lens to decisions, exercises principled challenge, and balances local optimization with enterprise outcomes.
• Build‑don’t‑just‑buy orientation — can shape custom and agentic solutions, not just deploy vendor tools off the shelf.
• Bias for action — comfortable with ambiguity and willing to make decisions with incomplete information.
• Strong collaborator — partners well across functions and levels; gives credit and shares ownership; operates effectively as one of three peer transformation leaders.
• Intellectual curiosity — stays current on legal industry trends, emerging technology, and benchmarks.

About State Street

Across the globe, institutional investors rely on us to help them manage risk, respond to challenges, and drive performance and profitability. We keep our clients at the heart of everything we do, and smart, engaged employees are essential to our continued success.

We are committed to fostering an environment where every employee feels valued and empowered to reach their full potential. As an essential partner in our shared success, you’ll benefit from inclusive development opportunities, flexible work‑life support, paid volunteer days, and vibrant employee networks that keep you connected to what matters most. Join us in shaping the future.

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we consider all qualified applicants for all positions without regard to race, creed, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, age, disability, genetic information, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, citizenship, marital status, domestic partnership or civil union status, familial status, military and veteran status, and other characteristics protected by applicable law.

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