AVP, Legal Operations & Network Strategy

MetLife Legal Plans; Cleveland (OH); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

MetLife Legal Plans seeks a strategic AVP to lead legal operations and the nationwide attorney network. This senior role drives process enhancements, panel management, and coordinated service delivery across member experience, law firms, and internal teams.

The ideal candidate balances legal insight with operational excellence, guiding coverage decisions, audits, and fee strategy while advancing growth and sponsor reporting.

Qualifications

• Seasoned attorney with leadership experience.
• Experience managing attorney networks and related operational processes.
• Ability to drive compliance, audits, and SLA adherence across a national network.
• Strong business acumen with a balance of legal and financial considerations.

Responsibilities

• Lead attorney network management including recruitment, training, evaluation, and credentialing.
• Oversee a team of relationship managers and support staff to engage nationwide.
• Develop communications strategies to strengthen relationships and improve network engagement.
• Support coverage reviews, fee negotiations, and consistency of fee schedules.
• Manage renewal cycles and ensure manual updates for Participating Law Firms.
• Collaborate with Sales, Legal, Claims, Finance, and Operations on growth initiatives and sponsor reporting.
• Oversee compliance and audit processes including malpractice checks and audit responses.

Skills

Executive leadership

People management

Strategic planning

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Juris Doctor (JD)

Licensed attorney

Job description

A day in the life of an AVP, Legal Operations & Network Strategy at MetLife Legal Plans:

The AVP, Legal Operations & Network Strategy provides executive leadership for the department responsible for overseeing both the strategic management of MetLife Legal Plans’ nationwide attorney network and the business processes that support it. This role ensures operational effectiveness across panel management and claims collaboration, while driving accountability to service level agreements, audit standards, and enterprise objectives. As a senior subject matter expert, the AVP provides guidance on complex coverage matters and escalations, ensuring cohesion between internal teams, member experience, and participating law firms.

This leader sets the vision and direction for a team of relationship managers and support professionals, strengthening internal processes, enhancing network engagement, and delivering measurable performance outcomes. The role partners closely with Sales Support, Legal, Claims, Finance, and Operations to support growth initiatives, fee strategy, coverage evolution, and sponsor reporting. Success requires strong business acumen and the ability to balance legal expertise, operational scalability, financial considerations, and customer experience.

The ideal candidate is a seasoned attorney and proven people leader who understands how law firms operate and can confidently lead at both the executive and practitioner levels. This is a strategic leadership opportunity for a legal professional who wants to influence how legal services are delivered at scale while leading a high-performing department within a growth-oriented organization.

This position will be a hybrid position, with roughly two days in the Cleveland, OH office and three days remote

Responsibilities (Essential Duties and Responsibilities): Attorney Network Management

• Manage attorney panel including recruiting, training, supervising, evaluating and re-credentialing and communicating with PLFs and visiting PLF offices as appropriate
• Lead a team 40 relationship managers to engage, support, educate and manage attorney relationships across the country
• Develop communications and strategies to strengthen our relationships, engage, educate and improve the network NPS
• Support coverage reviews including coverage determinations and coverage appeals.
• Manage annual review of network attorney fees to determine if adjustments need to be made to existing fee schedules including negotiation of fees.
• Maintain and update Participating Law Firm manual on a regular basis.
• Support and manage virtual panel engagement offering available to members.
• Lead a team of associates that support scheduling appointments with our attorneys

Sales Support

• Support Sales department in completing RFP (request for proposal) responses, plan comparisons, and competitor comparisons.
• Participate in finalist meetings, customer facing sales calls/presentations as requested by the sales/marketing organization.
• Partner with our Sales and Legal departments in creating new coverages and/or updating coverage definitions and establish alignment of these changes throughout the organization.
• Partner with Finance and Legal departments in establishing network and out of network attorney fees for new coverage offerings.
• Approve special fee requests at firm level during recruitment to our network.

Compliance/Audit Management

• Manage attorney panel including recruiting, evaluating, and re-credentialing to including malpractice checks.
• Manage recruiting of network attorneys including: reviewing and approving all attorney applications
• Manage the attorney audit system including assisting accounting with audit standards and cases, determining PLF status related to audit issues and managing training related audit issues
• Support and manage responses for member complaints relating to coverage, claims processing and network attorneys.