Director, Legal Operations

KBR Careers; Arlington (VA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401K plan with company match

Medical benefits

Dental benefits

Vision benefits

Paid time off

Flexible work schedule

Job summary

KBR, a global leader in science, technology, and engineering solutions, is seeking a Director of Legal Operations. This role leads strategic, financial, and technology initiatives across the legal function, partnering with GC and cross-functional leaders to deliver scalable, cost-effective legal services while advancing digital transformation and data governance.

The position emphasizes collaboration, governance, and continuous improvement within a dynamic, global organization.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required and 10+ years of experience in legal operations or related field.
• Leadership experience with direct reports and cross-functional teams.
• Strong understanding of in-house legal operations, including matter management and legal spend.
• Experience with e-discovery tools and cloud data environments.
• Proven ability to manage budgets and outside counsel engagements.
• Experience implementing legal technology platforms and driving digital transformation.

Responsibilities

• Lead strategic direction for legal operations and finance across the global function.
• Oversee budgeting, forecasting, and financial reporting for the legal department.
• Manage outside counsel, vendor relationships, and billing guidelines.
• Oversee e-discovery lifecycle, data preservation, and analytics.
• Drive process improvements and governance through technology roadmaps.
• Lead change management, training, and adoption of new tools and workflows.
• Collaborate with Finance, Procurement, IT, Compliance, and Cybersecurity.

Education

Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Finance, Legal Studies, or a related field.

Job description

Director, Legal Operations

We are KBR When you become part of our KBR team, your opportunities are endless. Through internal collaboration, and with our partners and customers, we’re defining tomorrow’s challenges, then providing the innovative solutions to overcome those challenges, always maintaining our commitment to Zero Harm and Sustainability Platform.

Working at KBR means being rewarded for your contributions. In addition to competitive benefits and professional development, our people are empowered to use all their potential, creating meaningful change for themselves and our clients.

We attract the best minds in the world because our expertise thrives on creativity, resourcefulness and collaboration. That is how we supply our clients with cutting-edge solutions. As the needs of the world change, we’re ready to respond and guide the way forward with strategic, sustainable, and technological advancements grounded in more than a century of practical application and execution.

We Are Legal

We take on any legal or related task. Every day we work across many different jurisdictions and interface with many different cultures. Our versatility is reflected in our strong commercial awareness and ability to adapt to the circumstances at hand, to provide solid practical legal and commercially focused.

About the Role

The Director, Legal Operations & Finance is a strategic leader responsible for driving operational excellence, financial discipline, and technology enablement across the global legal function. This role partners closely with the General Counsel, legal leadership, and cross-functional stakeholders to ensure efficient, cost-effective, and scalable delivery of legal services aligned with business priorities. We are seeking a collaborative, strategic leader with strong operational, financial, and technology acumen. The ideal candidate has experience building, scaling, or transforming Legal Operations or comparable business operations functions and can translate strategy into sustainable governance, processes, and capabilities. The candidate understands that the Legal Department must manage risk while enabling practical, timely business decisions.

About You

Accountability: You will own the legal department’s budget management, forecasting, and financial reporting processes, and you will lead the strategy and execution of legal technology initiatives — including AI implementation, enterprise reporting, and digital transformation — to ensure efficient, cost-effective, and scalable delivery of legal services aligned with business priorities.
Collaboration: You build trusted, practical partnerships across the enterprise and are comfortable working with diverse stakeholders and viewpoints. Whether you are partnering with Finance on budgeting and forecasting, coordinating with IT and Digital teams on legal technology solutions, working with Procurement on vendor management, or aligning with Compliance and Cybersecurity on e-discovery and data preservation, you bring a calm, solutions-oriented approach and communicate clearly with credibility.
Adaptability: You thrive in a dynamic environment and can shift seamlessly between longer-horizon strategic initiatives — such as technology roadmap development, process optimization, and operating model design — and time-sensitive operational demands such as e-discovery deadlines, budget close cycles, and urgent matter intake. You exercise strong judgment, stay organized under pressure, and bring a professional, polished approach when managing competing priorities across a fast-paced, global organization.
Employee Champion: You are an experienced people leader who develops legal operations professionals and fosters a culture of continuous improvement and operational excellence. You set clear expectations, delegate effectively, and ensure high-quality execution across legal operations, e-discovery, and technology workstreams. You lead change management and adoption efforts for new tools and processes, and you coordinate and manage outside counsel and vendors efficiently, including scoping engagements, establishing billing guidelines, and managing costs.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic Leadership: Partner with the General Counsel and legal leadership to set priorities and drive execution against departmental goals. Serve as a trusted advisor by providing insights and practical recommendations to support leadership decisions. Translate strategy into actionable plans with clear milestones, accountability, and measurable outcomes. Identify opportunities to improve service delivery, strengthen value, and reduce outside legal spend.
• Legal Financial Management & Analytics: Act as department liaison partnering with Finance for budgeting, forecasting, month-end close and financial reporting. Oversee invoice lifecycle management ensuring compliance and accuracy.
• Outside Counsel & Vendor Management: Support Legal Department leaders and other stakeholders in outside counsel and vendor management initiatives. Manage outside counsel billing and onboarding. Establish billing guidelines and engagement standards. Oversee coordination Legal Settlement payments with payroll and accounts payable. Work with procurement in establishing PO’s with vendors.
• E-Discovery & Legal Data Management: Oversee the global e-discovery function, ensuring efficient, defensible, and cost-effective management of electronically stored information (ESI) for litigation, investigations, and regulatory matters. Manage the end-to-end e-discovery lifecycle (legal hold, preservation, collection, review, production, disposition). Administer the legal hold program, ensuring timely issuance, tracking, and compliance. Manage e-discovery tools and vendors; leverage analytics, AI, and automation to improve quality and reduce cost. Partner with Legal, IT, Cybersecurity, and Compliance on data preservation, incident response, and investigations.
• Process Improvement & Operational Excellence: Work with legal functions to standardize and improve processes. Identify inefficiencies and implement scalable solutions. SharePoint site administration.
• Legal Technology & Digital Transformation: Develop and execute legal operations strategy, including process optimization, technology roadmap, AI implementation, and enterprise reporting. Oversee selection, implementation, and administration of legal technology (matter management, e-billing, automated workflows, document management). Manage integrations and system enhancements. Partner with Legal, IT, Digital, and business stakeholders to evaluate, implement, and govern legal technology solutions. Oversee matter lifecycle management: intake, tracking, reporting, taxonomy, and closeout. Lead change management, training, and adoption for new tools and workflows. Drive adoption of tools and processes that improve productivity, transparency, reporting, and decision-making.
• Leadership & Team Management: Lead, mentor, and develop a team of legal operations professionals, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and operational excellence. Collaborate with Finance, Procurement, IT, and Compliance teams to ensure alignment on cross-functional initiatives, Define performance metrics and foster continuous improvement. Support change management initiatives, including those arising from corporate transactions or organizational restructurings.
• Communications & Administration: Support change management and communication efforts associated with new processes, technologies, governance structures, and operating models. Promote best practices and help develop department guidelines, policies, training materials, playbooks, and self-service resources. Support cross-functional coordination and ensure follow-through on key operational decisions and initiatives.
• Additional Responsibilities: Lead or support additional projects and responsibilities as assigned by the General Counsel. Stay current on developments in legal operations, legal technology, and related industry trends to help shape continuous improvement.

Basic Qualifications Education & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Finance, Legal Studies, or a related field.
• 10+ years of experience in legal operations, legal project management, or a related function, with at least 5 years in a leadership role.
• Experience managing direct reports, consultants, contractors, and cross-functional project teams.
• Strong understanding of in-house legal department operations, including matter management, contract workflows, legal spend, reporting, and stakeholder service models.
• Deep expertise in e-discovery tools and processes (e.g., Relativity, legal hold platforms) and cloud data environments (e.g., M365).
• Strong working knowledge of e-discovery regulations and data privacy requirements (e.g., FRCP, cross-border data considerations).
• Demonstrated experience managing legal department budgets.
• Experience with outside counsel management, including RFPs, rate negotiations, and performance metrics.
• Experience implementing, administering, or optimizing legal technology platforms, including matter management, e-billing, contract lifecycle management, legal intake, document management or knowledge management systems and Relativity.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional projects and drive process improvement in complex, matrixed organizations.
• Excellent analytical, communication, and stakeholder management skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• CLOC (Corporate Legal Operations Consortium) certification or active participation.
• Familiarity with data analytics, AI/ML applications in legal, and emerging legal.
• Experience in a multinational organization.

Competencies

• Strategic thinking with the ability to translate vision into actionable plans.
• Data-driven decision-making and financial acumen.
• Strong vendor and relationship management skills.
• Ability to manage competing priorities in a fast-paced, global environment.
• Commitment to fostering an inclusive, high-performance team culture.

Additional Compensation

KBR may offer bonuses, commissions, or other forms of compensation to certain job titles or levels, per internal policy or contractual designation. Additional compensation may be in the form of sign on bonus, relocation benefits, short term incentives, long term incentives, or discretionary payments for exceptional performance.

Benefits

• KBR offers a selection of competitive lifestyle benefits which could include a 401K plan with company match
• medical
• dental
• vision
• life insurance
• AD&D
• flexible spending account
• disability
• paid time off
• flexible work schedule

KBR brings together the best and brightest to deliver science, technology and engineering solutions that help governments and companies around the world accomplish their most critical missions and objectives. In everything we do, we are guided by our ONE KBR Values: We Value Our People – We create diverse, inclusive environments in which each person can feel safe, respected and valued, and where everyone has opportunities to grow and reach their full potential. We Deliver – We are uncompromising in our commitment to deliver innovative, high-quality, technology-led solutions for our customers and exceptional, sustainable value for all our stakeholders. We Are People of Integrity – We value honesty, trust, courage, fairness, prudence and tenacity. We believe doing what’s right for the planet, the communities where we work, and our people is good for business. We Empower – We empower our people with a shared purpose, the right tools and the supportive culture they need to be proactive decision-makers, to be adaptive to change, and to succeed. We Are a Team of Teams – We have a will to succeed, but we value the achievements of our team of teams over individual accomplishments. Our collective focus makes us a better, stronger, more effective company. We have also embedded environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles in every business operation and corporate function. Not only are we committed to operating safe, sustainably and equitably, but we are also committed to using our capabilities and expertise to help our customers accomplish their sustainability goals. Worldwide…

KBR is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, veteran status, genetic information, union status and/or beliefs, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.

KBR — Delivering Solutions, Changing the World.