Legal Vendor Manager

Jameson Legal Tech; Slough; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

Jameson Legal Tech is seeking a permanent, full-time Legal Vendor Manager within the legal and tax team. You will own external advisory spend, build AI-enabled tools to provide spend visibility, and streamline relationships and billing with external advisors.

You will lead budgeting, oversee fee arrangements, report to leadership, and drive improvements to procurement governance. A commercially minded, well-organised professional is essential.

Qualifications

• Strong experience managing external counsel and advisory spend.
• Proven track record implementing spend management processes or tools.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to build relationships at all levels.
• Experience managing panel processes.

Responsibilities

• Own the annual budgeting process and communicate budgets to stakeholders.
• Provide regular reporting to legal and tax leadership.
• Monitor and manage fee arrangements and rate cards across all external vendors.
• Identify opportunities for fixed-fee arrangements and volume discounts.
• Configure and leverage AI-enabled spend management tools.
• Integrate spend platforms with the firm’s finance systems.
• Continuously improve the spend management platform based on feedback.
• Run external advisor panel review processes and onboarding.
• Be the primary contact for billing and relationship admin with external advisors.
• Collaborate with the legal technology team on emerging tools and governance.

Skills

Vendor management

Budgeting

Stakeholder management

AI tools

Financial reporting

Spend management

Communication

Panel management

Accounts payable

Tools

Spend management tools

Job description

A new opportunity has arisen at a successful private equity firm for a legal vendor manager on a permanent, full-time basis. Based within the legal and tax team, this is a new, business-critical role where you will take ownership of how the firm manages external relationships and associated expenditure.

The main purpose of this role is to build processes and AI-enabled tools that provide visibility of external advisory spend and support the legal and tax teams in managing external relationships efficiently.

Main responsibilities include:

• Owning the annual budgeting process – setting and communicating budgets to relevant stakeholders.
• Providing regular reporting to legal and tax leadership.
• Monitoring and managing fee arrangements and rate cards across all external vendors.
• Identifying opportunities for fixed-fee arrangements and volume discounts.
• Leveraging and configuring legal spend management tools, integrating AI-enabled functionality where appropriate.
Ensuring that the legal spend management platforms are integrated with the firm’s other finance systems.
• Continuously improving the spend management platform based on user feedback.
• Managing and maintaining external advisor panels, running regular panel review processes.
• Acting as the primary point of contact for external advisors on billing and relationship admin issues.
• Coordinating onboarding of new external advisors.
• Ensuring that all external advisory invoices are processed and settled within agreed payment terms.
• Collaborating closely with the legal technology team, staying aware of emerging legal technology systems and recommending new innovative tools.
• Identifying and implementing improvements to procurement governance for external advisors

Experience and skills required:

• Strong experience managing external counsel and professional advisory spend.
• Proven track record of implementing spend management processes or tools.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to build relationships at all levels.
• The ability to work under pressure and to tight timescales.
• Experience managing panel processes.
• Skilled in using legal technology and AI tools to improve processes.
• A solid understanding of finance and accounts payable function.
• Confidence presenting to senior stakeholders.

This is an exciting role that offers a competitive salary and the opportunity to make a big contribution in a high-impact role .To be successful you must possess excellent stakeholder management skills, be commercially minded and very well organised.