Sr Manager, Legal Operations

Toronto · Remote · CAD 135,500-169,500 / year · 5+ years experience · Posted Oct 1, 2026

At a glance

You serve as a strategic partner to the Chief Legal Officer and work closely with the entire Legal team, as well as cross-functional stakeholders, to ensure Legal programs run smoothly.
You oversee all facets of the Legal team’s operations, play a key role in day-to-day support, and make an impact by driving efficiency, optimizing processes, scaling resources, and supporting strategic goals.

Oversee the department budget by partnering with FP&A and Accounting on monthly accruals, forecasts, and annual planning, and identify vendor savings opportunities to self-fund incremental resources.
Oversee law firm and other vendor billing, manage POs and invoices, and track vendor spend and alternative fee arrangements.
Play a key role in driving AI initiatives and pushing adoption across the team, and evaluate and manage the Legal tech stack.
Identify resource gaps, streamline workflows, and drive operational efficiencies across the Legal team.
Promote team culture through events, recognition, and operating cadences that keep the Legal team connected and engaged, plan and coordinate in-person team offsites, and manage agendas for team meetings.
Collect and analyze team metrics, compiling them into monthly and quarterly business reports, and prepare executive presentations, reports, and documentation.
Manage team-wide and cross-functional projects to support strategic initiatives, ensuring successful execution.

5+ years of experience in Legal operations, business operations, strategic project/program management, or related fields with progression into increasing responsibility and strategic scope, preferably with an in-house Legal team.
Strong financial acumen with experience managing a department budget.
Experience using AI and automation tools to improve efficiency.
Exceptional communication skills, organizational skills, and attention to detail.
Ability to influence across all levels of the organization.
Ability to scale operations as the department grows.
Proven record of deploying systems end-to-end, and developing solutions to reduce routine escalations to senior team members.
Demonstrated success managing complex initiatives in a fast-paced environment.
A self-starter with the ability to work autonomously.
Ability to build strong partnerships across Legal, and with cross-functional partners and outside counsel.

Requires 3 days per week in office as part of Upwork's first international operational hub in Toronto, Canada.