Legal Specialist

Epiq Counsel; United States; Remote; USD 166,000 - 187,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare

Paid vacation

Paid holidays

Coaching support

Job summary

Epiq Counsel is seeking a Legal Spend Manager to own the client’s outside counsel spend and negotiation program. This interim, full-time role is remote (U.S.-based) and reports to the head of Legal Operations.

You will negotiate master retention agreements and statements of work, evaluate fee proposals, run RFP counters, and build data-driven playbooks to sharpen future negotiations while collaborating with attorneys, pricing teams, and firm partners.

Qualifications

• Experience negotiating with law firms on rates and terms.
• Deep knowledge of legal spend, fee proposals, and AFAs.
• Experience with e-billing systems and spend reporting.
• Owns programs end-to-end with minimal direction.
• Strong written and verbal communication with stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Negotiate master retention agreement terms with firms across the global panel.
• Negotiate statements of work and day-to-day pricing with firms and pricing teams.
• Serve as the point of contact for firms on commercial terms.
• Monitor RFP responses and negotiate counters with firms to agreement.
• Maintain rate cards, e-billing data, and spend dashboards; produce reporting for negotiations.

Skills

Legal spend

Negotiation

RFP management

E-billing

Data analysis

Stakeholder comms

Vendor management

Tools

RFP platforms

E-billing systems

Spend dashboards

Job description

Epiq Counsel is seeking a Legal Spend Manager to support our client, a global technology company, in its Legal Operations function.

This is an interim engagement for a legal operations professional who wants to own the commercial relationship with outside counsel rather than administer it. You’ll negotiate master retention agreements and statements of work directly with law firms, evaluate fee proposals and alternative fee arrangements against what the work should actually cost, run RFP counters at the direction of the attorneys who own the matters, and build the data and playbooks that make the next negotiation sharper than the last. It is a hands-on, firm-facing role with a hands-off manager: you’ll be trusted to run the program, and expected to.

About the Client

Our client is one of the world’s largest technology companies, with a global legal department and an outside counsel panel spanning the United States, EMEA, Latin America, and APAC. Its Legal Operations team owns outside counsel spend, pricing, and firm relationships for the department, and is partway through rolling out a global master retention agreement across the panel. This role reports to the head of Legal Operations and works day to day with the department’s attorneys and the firms’ partners and pricing teams.

• Duration: Twelve months, with potential extension for an additional twelve


• Hours: Full-time, 40 hours per week


• Work Model: Fully remote (U.S.-based); the hiring manager is on the East Coast and the panel is global


• Start Date: As soon as available


• Client Exposure: Direct collaboration with the head of Legal Operations and the department’s attorneys internally; regular negotiation with law firm partners and pricing/LPM teams externally


• Compensation: $80–$90 per hour, commensurate with experience (approximately $166,000–$187,000 annualized)


• Benefits: Healthcare, paid vacation, paid holidays, and engagement support and coaching throughout

Responsibilities

Outside Counsel Negotiation (approximately 50%)

• Negotiate master retention agreement terms with firms across the global panel, pushing back on clauses and holding firms to the client’s standard positions; complete the remaining rollout


• Negotiate statements of work and day-to-day pricing with firms — partners, LPM teams, and pricing professionals — giving them numbers and holding them


• Serve as the point of contact for firms on commercial terms, escalating only what needs attorney or leadership attention

RFP and Fee Proposal Evaluation (approximately 30%)

• Monitor RFP responses in the client’s online RFP platform, review proposals, and route them to the responsible attorneys


• Take attorney direction on counters and negotiate them with the firms through to agreement


• Evaluate alternative fee arrangements and fee proposals against matter history and market benchmarks, and flag when a number is off

Spend Intelligence and Playbooks (approximately 20%)

• Maintain rate cards, e-billing data, and spend dashboards; produce the reporting that informs negotiation strategy


• Build a negotiation playbook from the signed agreements versus the baseline — where terms were conceded, where they held, and which firms received what — including the use of AI tools where they help


• Identify and improve recurring contracting and pricing processes

Qualifications

• Contract review and negotiation experience in a legal operations, outside counsel management, or legal pricing function; a JD is welcome but not required


• Deep knowledge of legal spend — rate benchmarking, fee proposals, and alternative fee arrangements — and the judgment to know when a proposal is off-market


• Experience negotiating directly with law firms on rates, terms, or engagement structures, and the poise to hold a position across the table from a partner


• Hands-on familiarity with e-billing systems, rate cards, and spend reporting; comfortable learning the client’s RFP and e-billing platforms


• A program manager rather than a project manager: owns standing responsibilities end to end, works independently, and does not need close direction


• Strong written and verbal communication with internal and external stakeholders


• Technologically fluent, including Google and Microsoft suites

Preferred Experience

• Prior experience at both an in-house legal department and a law firm, including a firm-side pricing or legal project management role


• Experience with online RFP platforms and e-billing or matter management systems


• Experience using AI tools in legal operations or contract analysis


• Exposure to non-U.S. law firms and multi-jurisdictional outside counsel panels


• Prior experience at a technology company

Why This Role

This is a chance to own outside counsel pricing and negotiation for one of the largest legal departments in the world — the negotiations are yours to run, the data is there to run them with, and the manager will let you. It’s ideal for a legal operations professional who has spent years supporting the people who negotiate with firms and is ready to be the one who does, with the flexibility and support of the Epiq Counsel model.

About Epiq Counsel

Epiq Counsel is an innovative legal services talent provider that offers meaningful work and flexibility to sophisticated, credentialed lawyers and legal professionals. Our lawyers work on a wide variety of matters for leading organizations across the U.S. Epiq works hard to provide our diverse legal talent with challenging, high-quality work that does not require sacrificing flexibility or control. We take the time to understand each legal professional's practice areas, experience, and preferences to ensure alignment with sophisticated interim in-house opportunities. Leverage our network to work with organizations in need of top-tier legal services, and take the next step in your career by joining a vibrant community of Epiq legal professionals.

It is Epiq’s policy to comply with all applicable equal employment opportunity laws by making all employment decisions without unlawful regard or consideration of any individual’s race, religion, ethnicity, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expressions, transgender status, sexual and other reproductive health decisions, marital status, age, national origin, genetic information, ancestry, citizenship, physical or mental disability, veteran or family status or any other basis protected by applicable national, federal, state, provincial or local law. Epiq’s policy prohibits unlawful discrimination based on any of these impermissible bases, as well as any bases or grounds protected by applicable law in each jurisdiction. If you need assistance or an accommodation during the application process because of a disability, it is available upon request. Epiq is pleased to provide such assistance and no applicant will be penalized as a result of such a request. Pursuant to relevant law, where applicable, Epiq will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.