Director, Legal Support Services

Nixon Peabody LLP; Washington, Baltimore (District of Columbia, MD); Hybrid; USD 164,000 - 252,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

Job summary

Nixon Peabody LLP is seeking a Director of Legal Support Services to lead paralegal operations, docketing, and practice group support. The role oversees staffing, budgeting, and process improvements across offices, with strong emphasis on data-driven service delivery.

The position requires a decade of experience in legal support, a Bachelor’s degree, and leadership excellence. A hybrid work arrangement is available to balance in-office collaboration and remote work.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 10 years of progressive experience in legal support operations.
• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred.
• Strong leadership, budgeting, and change-management capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Leads firmwide strategy for legal support including paralegal operations.
• Develops scalable support models aligned with business objectives.
• Oversees staffing, performance, workload balancing, and career progression.
• Monitors paralegal utilization, realization, leverage, and overtime.
• Collaborates with practice group leaders to optimize service delivery.
• Partners with IT, eDiscovery, and Records teams for tool adoption.

Skills

Leadership

Change management

Communication

Relationship building

Strategic planning

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Paralegal certificate/J.D./MBA/MPA or equivalent

Tools

Docketing systems

Calendaring systems

Document management

Timekeeping & billing

Matter management

eDiscovery tools

AI-enabled legal tools

Job description

Job Description

The Director, Legal Support Services is responsible for the strategic leadership, operational oversight, and continuous improvement of the firm’s legal support functions, with a particular focus on paralegal services across legal departments, litigation docketing, and specialized practice group support. This role ensures that the firm delivers high-quality, efficient, scalable, and client-focused legal support across offices, practices, and client teams. The role requires a sophisticated understanding of law firm operations, attorney support needs, litigation and transactional workflows, staffing models, utilization metrics, professional development, risk management, and service delivery. A hybrid work arrangement is available for this position.

Job Description

The Director, Legal Support Services is responsible for the strategic leadership, operational oversight, and continuous improvement of the firm’s legal support functions, with a particular focus on paralegal services across legal departments, litigation docketing, and specialized practice group support. This role ensures that the firm delivers high-quality, efficient, scalable, and client-focused legal support across offices, practices, and client teams. The role requires a sophisticated understanding of law firm operations, attorney support needs, litigation and transactional workflows, staffing models, utilization metrics, professional development, risk management, and service delivery. A hybrid work arrangement is available for this position.

A career at Nixon Peabody is the opportunity to do work that matters. It’s the chance to use your knowledge to shape what’s ahead. To share, to innovate, to learn at a firm that taps the power of collective thinking.

We’ve created a dynamic, energizing environment that promotes success for our clients and each other. We offer fast growth, connectedness and training in business as well as law. And our rigorous standards assure you are part of a diverse team of top talent at every turn.

Reporting Relationships

This position reports to the Chief Administration Officer. Maintains a matrixed relationship with a strong dotted-line to the department head of each legal department, collaborating closely on work allocation, staffing, operational priorities, and department-specific needs.

This position directly supervises the Senior Manager, Paralegals; Manager, Litigation Docketing; and Manager, Paralegal Operations.

Location

Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Los Angeles, CA; New York City, NY; Rochester, NY; Washington, DC

Essential Job Responsibilities

• Leads the firmwide strategy for legal support services, including paralegal services, litigation paralegal operations, and litigation docketing.
• Develops and implements scalable support models that align with the firm’s business objectives, practice group needs and client service standards.
• Partners with firm leadership, including practice group leaders, business managers, administrative departments, and attorneys, to assess legal support needs and ensure paralegal resources are appropriately aligned with client and matter demands.
• Provides strategic oversight of the firm's paralegal program across staffing, performance management, professional development, workload balancing, and career progression; regularly monitors and analyzes paralegal utilization, realization, leverage, overtime, and availability to ensure resources are deployed effectively and proactively address performance trends.
• Identifies opportunities and collaborate with practice group leaders to expand the effective use of paralegals and other practice group support professionals to improve service delivery, efficiency, and matter profitability across the firm.
• Establishes consistent expectations for paralegal roles, including skill development, work allocation, billing practices, and professional standards across the firm.
• Serves as an employee relations resource for the paralegal population, managing performance concerns, disciplinary matters, conflict resolution, and escalations in partnership with Regional Human Resources.
• Oversees management of the litigation docketing function to ensure accurate, timely, and compliant practices across jurisdictions, with consistent attention to risk mitigation, court rule compliance, and matter team accountability.
• Analyzes workflows, staffing patterns, service levels, technology usage, and performance metrics to assess operational effectiveness and support data-driven decision‑making.
• Leads process improvement initiatives that reduce duplication, improve turnaround times, enhance quality, and increase consistency.
• Collaborates with Finance to evaluate legal support leverage, matter economics, billing practices, and profitability impact.
• Partners with IT and innovation teams to assess and implement tools that improve legal support operations, including docketing systems, workflow tools, automation, AI-enabled solutions, and matter management platforms.
• Supports change management efforts related to technology adoption, workflow redesign, team restructuring, and new service delivery models.
• Supports operational excellence across discovery, filings, deposition support, trial preparation, case management, and litigation logistics.
• Identifies opportunities to standardize litigation support workflows while preserving flexibility for practice-specific and client-specific needs.
• Collaborates with Secretarial Services, eDiscovery, Practice Technology, Records, Knowledge Management, and Litigation Support teams to ensure seamless matter support.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

To perform this job successfully, you must be able to perform each essential job responsibility listed above, satisfactorily, with or without reasonable accommodation. Nixon Peabody retains the right to change or assign other duties to this position. The requirements listed below are representative of the skills and abilities required.

• Minimum of 10 years of progressively responsible experience in legal support operations, paralegal management, litigation operations, law firm administration, or related legal services management, preferably in a large law firm or similarly complex professional services environment.
• Bachelor’s degree required. Paralegal certificate, J.D., MBA, MPA, or other advanced degree preferred.
• Strong understanding of litigation workflows, paralegal services, docketing/calendaring operations, court rules, matter staffing, and law firm service delivery.
• Experience managing budgets, staffing models, performance metrics, and resource allocation.
• Strong leadership, communication, relationship‑building, and change management skills.
• Ability to work effectively with partners, attorneys, business professionals, and firm leadership. Demonstrated experience leading managers and directing legal support teams across multiple offices.
• Experience with litigation docketing and calendaring, document management, timekeeping and billing, and matter management systems.
• Experience with legal project management, process improvement, and legal operations frameworks.
• Working knowledge of eDiscovery, trial support, litigation technology, knowledge management, and AI‑enabled legal tools.
• Demonstrated ability of developing career frameworks, competency models, training programs, or centralized legal support models.
• High degree of professionalism, discretion, judgment, and commitment to confidentiality.

In accordance with applicable Federal and State laws, the anticipated annual salary range for this position, depending on location, is as follows:

• Rochester, NY: $148,500 to $228,800
• Boston, MA: $163,500 to $251,900
• Chicago, IL: $163,500 to $251,900
• Los Angeles, CA: $163,500 to $251,900
• Washington, DC: $163,500 to $251,900
• New York, NY: $180,000 to $277,200

In addition to a standard benefits package, this role may be eligible for additional contingent compensation based on an array of factors, including but not limited to: work performance, geographic location, work experience, education, and qualifications. Because such contingent compensation is not yet calculable or may be zero ($0) in some circumstances, the above-listed salary range(s) are Nixon Peabody’s good faith estimate of the annual salary(ies) it reasonably expects to pay for the position at the time of this posting.

Nixon Peabody LLP is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmitive Action Employer: Disability / Veteran. Nixon Peabody is committed to creating a fair workplace and does not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, national origin, sex, age, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, citizenship status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

To comply with Federal law, Nixon Peabody participates in E-Verify. All newly hired employees are verified through this electronic system established by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) to confirm their identity and employment eligibility. Please refer to the Notice of E-Verify Participation and the Right to Work posters on the Nixon Peabody Careers page for more information.