Director, Legal Operations Jobs

This is where you save and sustain lives

At Baxter, we are deeply connected by our mission. No matter your role at Baxter, your work makes a positive impact on people around the world. You’ll feel a sense of purpose throughout the organization, as we know our work improves outcomes for millions of patients.

Baxter’s products and therapies are found in almost every hospital worldwide, in clinics and in the home. For over 85 years, we have pioneered significant medical innovations that transform healthcare.

Together, we create a place where we are happy, successful and inspire each other. This is where you can do your best work.

Join us at the intersection of saving and sustaining lives— where your purpose accelerates our mission.

Baxter plans to spin off our Kidney Care segment into an independent, publicly traded company. The new standalone entity with its own investment priorities and enhanced management focus will be better positioned to pursue growth opportunities and invest in innovation. This newly created role is intended to support strategic evolution of the organization.

#ThisIsWhere you can make an impact !

The Director, Legal Operations will support Kidney Care's Legal team globally. The final reporting structure for the Kidney Care Legal organization will be determined by the Kidney Care General Counsel, but it is anticipated the Legal Operations role will report to a Deputy General Counsel with a dotted line to the General Counsel, or potentially directly to the General Counsel. Prior to the completion of the spin-off, the role of Kidney Care Legal Operations Director will report to the Baxter Deputy General Counsel supervising the Separation Management activities for the Legal function.

This position is charged with leading the global Legal operations and strategic projects, lead Legal Department's operations related to outside counsel management, legal technology, project management and process improvement, knowledge management, financial planning, and administrative operations. This role will partner closely with the entire legal team and other shared service partners such as Finance, IT and HR.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

Both at Baxter and at Kidney Care, this individual will serve as a partner to members of the Legal Department and will collaborate effectively across the Company to assist the Company in meeting business objectives. They must present with credibility and confidence in an action-oriented environment. They must have strong collaboration and project management skills to support the design and implementation of the Kidney Care Legal Operations capabilities.

Legal Technology:

• Improve data integrity and analytical reporting capacity.
• Develop and maintain technology roadmap, champion the usage of technology to ensure and enhance Legal Department efficiency.
• Enhance existing and identify new tools to enable streamlined team collaboration and workflow automation both within the legal team and among business partners.
• Partner with technology teams to troubleshoot equipment/systems issues.
• Lead legal technology system deployments, enhancements and related process guidelines.

Financial Planning:

• Lead monthly reconciliation and reclassification requests, and quarterly budget estimate updates.
• Provide leadership and other budget owners with budget analysis and management recommendations.
• Supervise and guide legal billing, including rate approvals, invoice review and payment; resolve processing issues.
• Prepare accurate legal budget projections and monitors spend.
• Partner with attorneys and other professionals to gather full matter costs worldwide to aid active spend management and continue to supervise operational costs for improved budget forecasting accuracy.

Outside Counsel Management:

• Lead monthly Law firm matter budget review process and lead annual revision and distribution of billing guidelines and terms of engagement.
• Lead content, logistics and analysis for RFPs and competitive bidding process.
• Participate in planning and implementation of strategic outside counsel initiatives and support active law firm management.
• Lead reporting and analyses of legal services spend.
• Facilitate the management process for sourcing, negotiating, selecting and leading law firms through defined process and reporting.
• Offer analysis and recommendations with respect to alternative fee arrangements; review draft agreements.

Knowledge Management:

• Facilitate transparent and easily accessed legal practice and operations information to support global legal staff performing their responsibilities at the highest possible level of effectiveness and efficiency.
• Lead logistics for Legal Department, Town Hall Calls and similar meetings, including delegation of scheduling, technical support, communications and meeting materials
• Direct CLE program and professional association membership.
• Supervise development and maintenance of a Legal Homepage and internal legal specific social media characterized by transparency and availability of legal practice and operations information.
• Track trends in law industry and participate and collect relevant benchmarking to advise department initiatives.

Human Resources:

• Lead annual client satisfaction survey.
• Develop and improve processes to accurately track global staffing of law department, lead onboarding and offboarding processes.
• Own the maintenance of global legal directories, including supervising hires and departures, open positions, email distribution lists, and system access.

Project Management:

• Support Legal Department Leadership team with annual goal planning and quarterly tracking, as well as lead corporate initiatives that impact Legal.
• Lead goal setting process including quarterly updates.
• Lead projects, serve as the Legal Department Liaison between other departments and collaborate with staff leading central vendors to design processes that meet department needs.

Administrative Operations:

• Respond to internal and external inquiries.
• Ensure overall smooth functioning of Baxter Headquarters Law Departments.
• Work effectively across a multi-functional, global teams.
• Coordinate with facilities to reconfigure and repair office space as needed to meet staff needs.

What will you bring

• Strong collaboration skills, with an ability to establish relationships both within a team and across external departments.
• Experience in workflow automation tools, matter management, E-billing, and document management strongly preferred.
• Law firm or in-house corporate legal department experience.
• Experience in developing reports that not only advise but drive decision making and action.
• Ability to influence within different parts of the organization.
• Skills in sound judgment, problem solving, critical thinking and interpersonal communication.
• Solid understanding of finance and accounting.
• Minimum 10 years’ operations experience, preferably in a legal or compliance environment, consulting or project management preferred.
• Strong proficiency in Microsoft Office including Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Word.
• Bachelor’s degree required. CPA, MBA or JD preferred.
• Attention to detail with excellent time management and multitasking/prioritization abilities.
• Ability to identify, define requirements and implement process improvement.
• Proven ability to manage multiple concurrent projects and responsibilities.
• Strong negotiator with internal and external collaborators/vendors.
• Proactive, entrepreneurial approach to recognizing needs, solving problems, anticipating issues and developing solutions; excellent business judgment and critical thinking.

We understand compensation is an important factor as you consider the next step in your career. At Baxter, we are committed to equitable pay for all our employees, and we strive to be more transparent with our pay practices. To that end, this position has a base salary range of 176,000 to 264,000 plus an annual incentive bonus, commission and equity target . The above range represents the expected base salary range for this position. The actual salary may vary based upon several factors including, but not limited to, relevant skills/experience, time in role, business line, and geographic/office location

The successful candidate for this job may be required to verify that he or she has been vaccinated against COVID-19, subject to reasonable accommodations for individuals with medical conditions or religious beliefs that prevent vaccination, and in accordance with applicable law.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Baxter is an equal opportunity employer. Baxter evaluates qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, disability/handicap status or any other legally protected characteristic.
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Reasonable Accommodations
Baxter is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities globally. If, because of a medical condition or disability, you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application or interview process, please click on the link here and let us know the nature of your request along with your contact information.

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