Manager, Outside Counsel & Vendor Operations

About the Role:

Uber's Chief Legal Office (CLO) Operations team is seeking a Manager, Outside Counsel & Vendor Operations to lead the end-to-end operations and optimization of our legal vendor ecosystem. This role will oversee the processes, systems, and strategic initiatives that support our law firm and vendor relationships, with a strong focus on vendor value optimization,billing compliance and operational scalability. They will be responsible for creating and executing programs to maximize cost savings while ensuring high-quality legal support for the entire department.

You will partner closely with Legal, Finance, Procurement, Accounting, and Supplier Management teams to deliver seamless customer experiences, while ensuring financial and process discipline. You'll also play a critical role in developing your team, driving operational excellence, and modernizing our vendor operations function to support the evolving needs of the CLO.

What You'll Do

• Set Strategy and Drive Execution: Create and implement Uber' outside counsel engagement strategy, influencing and aligning with legal leadership and internal stakeholders.Define the priorities for vendor operations, aligning with broader legal operations and organizational goals, but also work in the trenches with the team to execute on established priorities.
• Optimize Value Realization: Oversee the law firm vendor lifecycle, including selection, negotiation, management and billing. Negotiate global law firm agreements, including outside counsel requirement terms, hourly rates and alternative fee agreements. Create competitive rate intelligence and benchmarking to aid in negotiations and ad hoc rate approval and establish processes to improve turnaround time.
• Modernize and Scale Processes: Optimize CLO processes across vendor onboarding, contracting, billing and payment compliance workflows for outside counsel and legal vendors. Work with CLO SMEs to develop playbooks, and optimize the law firm engagement letter review process.
• Own E-Billing Platform Strategy and Performance: Guide the ongoing development, integration, and support model for our e-billing systems (e.g., SimpleLegal, Coupa), ensuring scalability and usability across stakeholders. Lead system integrations and data flows across e-billing, Salesforce, and financial systems; define KPIs and dashboards for spend analytics, cycle time, and vendor performance.
• Lead and Manage a global team: Provide day-to-day leadership and professional development for a global team of Program Managers focused on legal vendor management, and operational administration.
• Ensure Excellence in Billing Operations: Maintain oversight of daily billing operations, including spend request governance, PO and matter creation, invoicing accuracy, and timely payment processing, assisting with escalations as needed.
• Accruals and Budget Collaboration: Oversee operational processes with Accounting and Finance teams to support legal accruals, budget planning, forecasting, and reporting efforts
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Act as the primary point of contact for vendor operations initiatives with Legal leadership, Finance, Procurement, and other key internal stakeholders.
• Drive Change Management and User Adoption: Lead change initiatives by developing training materials, delivering user education, and clearly communicating new processes to support global adoption across the department.

• 10+ years of experience in legal operations, vendor management, procurement, or finance, including 3+ years of people management experience.
• Demonstrable experience with designing, negotiating and evaluating fee agreements and rates, including alternative fee agreements.
• Experience scaling legal billing operations or vendor management programs. A demonstrated understanding of how to develop, implement, and enhance processes.
• Working knowledge of legal billing and Procure-to-Pay (P2P) processes and experience with tools such as SimpleLegal, Coupa, or equivalent platforms.
• Experience reviewing, drafting and coordinating SME feedback for outside counsel engagement letters.

• Demonstrated experience for innovation, leading cross-functional initiatives and improving operational workflows.
• Background in finance or economics preferred.
• Superior analytical and legal skills, mature judgment, innovative thinking and a desire to take the initiative and think two steps ahead.
• Strong, team-oriented collaborator, with confidence and flexibility to perform in nimble, rapidly changing and growing environments, as well as build relationships and gain credibility.
• Passionate about your work and a desire to have a big impact.
• Embody the highest standards of integrity, ethics and accountability.
• Enthusiasm about Uber and our mission!