Paralegal

Summary:

The Paralegal & Legal Operations Specialist serves as a pivotal role bridging traditional paralegal duties with modern legal operations functions. This position provides comprehensive support to the Legal Department while interfacing with the Executive Team and Board of Directors. The role demands excellent communication skills, both verbal and written, along with the ability to manage multiple tasks with competing priorities while handling sensitive and confidential material with the highest levels of discretion.

Reporting directly to the Chief Legal Officer, this position focuses primarily on supporting the Legal Department while effectively interfacing with the Executive Team and Board of Directors. This role represents an opportunity to evolve from traditional paralegal responsibilities into a more strategic legal operations function, creating operational efficiencies and improving department effectiveness.

Essential Duties

Litigation Support

Acknowledge and file all service of process

Monitor litigation-related email and file documents appropriately

Update litigation tracker for SOPs, emails, and outside counsel reports

Prepare Quarterly Board litigation updates

Administer legal holds and manage discovery matters, including overseeing e-discovery

Manage correspondence with outside counsel and prepare regular updates for the legal team

Research and respond to discovery requests

Complete special litigation projects as assigned

Contract Management

Manage contract and sub-contract preparation, review, revision, and processing

Prepare and/or review statements of work, nondisclosure agreements between business partners, banks, vendors, contractors, and other relevant parties

File signed contracts and maintain accurate organization of files

Add contracts to contract tracker and maintain complete records

Manage and track contract requests and workflow

Monitor contract renewal/termination dates

Manage Certificate of Insurance (COI) requests and file vendor COIs

Corporate Governance

Assist with compilation of board meeting materials

Manage signatures of minutes and other corporate documents

Maintain and generate stock certificates when required

Maintain equity ledger and corporate records

Maintain corporate policy documents, committee/board charters, and officer/director lists

Schedule investor updates

Facilitate and maintain corporate filings for various corporate legal entities, captive insurance company, and corporate foundation

Legal Operations

Define, launch, and drive strategic and operational initiatives to improve department efficiency

Report on key operational and substantive metrics that better inform decision-making

Identify and implement legal department tools to streamline new or existing practices

Develop and enforce processes and policies to manage outside counsel usage and spend

Assist with budget matters and optimizing workflows within the legal department

Translate the needs of business departments into legal requirements

Collaborate with cross-functional teams including sales, support, business development, regulatory, IT, and finance

Intellectual Property

Prepare IP updates for quarterly perfection certificates

Research trademarks and domain names for availability and general clearance searches

Prepare search report results for IP matters

Administrative Support

Process monthly invoices, track budgets, and prepare annual accruals

Assist with annual audit requests and representation letters

Review, log, appeal, deduct, and process legal and related invoices for approval and payment

Track billing against estimates and billing guidelines

Maintain legal calendars including monitoring deadlines and scheduling meetings

Scan and file documents; maintain electronic case/project files on legal server

Coordinate information across departments and track internal requests for legal services

Review online articles for relevancy to the business

Acquisition Support

Assist with data rooms and information gathering for acquisitions as needed

Supervisory Responsibilities

N/A

Education Requirements:

Bachelor’s degree preferred.

Paralegal Certification preferred.

Experience Requirements:

Seven plus years of experience as in-house paralegal required.

Experience in litigation, including electronic discovery, and database tools helpful.

Experience with legal project operations and management in-house or at a law firm.

Exposure to/or experience with corporate governance, manufacturing and private label industry is a plus.

Competencies:

The successful candidate must have an acute attention to detail, be able to prepare and revise a wide variety of contracts and other documents.

Superior computer skills in Microsoft office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams) and Adobe Acrobat, and database management.

Experience in developing, implementing, and using legal department technology solutions

Ability to operate independently with various teams across the organization.

Ability to effectively manage sensitive and confidential information in a professional manner.

Excellent organizational skills and strong attention to detail.

Ability to multi-task and prioritize projects.

Ability to communicate effectively (verbally and in writing) with internal and external customers.

Ability and desire to work effectively in a high-volume environment.

Exposure to/or experience with a variety of legal documentation is strongly preferred.

Travel:

Limited

Work Environment:

This job operates in a professional office environment full time. This role routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers, phones, photocopiers, scanners, filing cabinets and fax machines. Due to the nature of the work and need for close collaboration with the legal team and executives, this is a fully on-site position that requires presence in the office.

Physical Demands:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to talk or hear. The employee frequently is required to stand; walk; use hands to finger, handle or feel; and reach with hands and arms.