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Director, Legal Operations

Coursera
Posted Oct 25
Full Time
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Coursera was launched in 2012 by two Stanford Computer Science professors, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, with a mission to provide universal access to world-class learning. It is now one of the largest online learning platforms in the world, with 148 million registered learners as of March 31, 2024.

Coursera partners with over 325 leading university and industry partners to offer a broad catalog of content and credentials, including courses, Specializations, Professional Certificates, Guided Projects, and bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Institutions around the world use Coursera to upskill and reskill their employees, citizens, and students in fields such as data science, technology, and business. Coursera became a B Corp in February 2021.

Join us in our mission to create a world where anyone, anywhere can transform their life through access to education. We're seeking talented individuals who share our passion and drive to revolutionize the way the world learns.

We at Coursera are committed to building a globally diverse team and are thrilled to extend employment opportunities to individuals in any country where we have a legal entity. We require candidates to possess eligible working rights and have a compatible timezone overlap with their team to facilitate seamless collaboration. 

Coursera has a commitment to enabling flexibility and workspace choices for employees. Our interviews and onboarding are entirely virtual, providing a smooth and efficient experience for our candidates. As an employee, we enable you to select your main way of working, whether it's from home, one of our offices or hubs, or a co-working space near you.

Job Overview:

Legal & Compliance (L&C) is responsible for managing all legal and regulatory matters for the Company, including contracts, corporate governance, general compliance, academic compliance, employment law matters, intellectual property, product counseling, data privacy, government relations, and claims. This global department includes dedicated teams that support every aspect of Coursera's business. 

As a senior member of L&C reporting directly to the General Counsel, this position will work closely with the General Counsel, L&C leaders and business stakeholders at all levels of the company to define and drive strategic and operational initiatives with on-time and on-budget results. As our Director, Legal Operations for a team of 30+ L&C members, you will be key in creating and automating processes and practices to improve the day-to-day efficiency and effectiveness of L&C, facilitate change, and control costs. You will provide creative, strategic thinking and real solutions to increase value, reduce low value work and optimize outside legal spend while maintaining excellent legal representation. You will oversee legal service providers and 3rd-party resources.

Responsibilities:

  • Develop and report on key operational metrics for the department to better inform decision-making, including benchmarking, matter and work product analyses, and dashboards
  • Manage outside counsel billing and spend as well as department budgeting, forecasting, reporting and accruals, serving as primary liaison with the finance team, and assist with headcount planning and staffing ratios
  • Evaluate and improve how L&C intakes, assigns, and manages legal work, including outsourced vendor contracting processes
  • Act as administrator to contract lifecycle management and other legal technologies and lead the department’s refinement of systems, processes, procedures, forms, and playbooks with a focus on leveraging Generative AI
  • Stay aware of legal operations industry and technology trends and advise on needed upgrades and improvements to business processes and tools
  • Manage special projects as required or requested

Basic Qualifications:

  • 10+ years of overall experience, with 6+ years of legal operations experience in a global in-house legal department
  • Demonstrated history of collaborating effectively with cross-functional teams in a professional manner
  • Experience with Mac, Google Suite and Microsoft Office suite, including Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint, and Google Docs, Slides, Forms, and Sheets 
  • Demonstrated history of accountability, integrity and taking ownership over projects and responsibilities within legal operations and resolving issues proactively, leading to continuous improvement of the legal department
  • Experience with developing, implementing, and using legal department technology solutions (e.g., e-Billing, contract and matter management)

Preferred Qualifications:

  • JD or MBA preferred with 15+ years of overall experience and 10+ years of legal operations experience
  • Experience with data analytics and using data to analyze performance and identify areas of improvement
  • Demonstrate entrepreneurial drive and comfort working in ambiguous, quickly-changing environments
  • Demonstrated experience developing metrics and dashboards for workload analysis.
  • Demonstrated organizational skills, keen attention to detail, and unfailing follow-up to effectively manage multiple activities of varying difficulty, priority and complexity 
  • A record of past achievement, including the ability to spearhead process creation and improvement

Compensation:

Coursera offers competitive pay and equitable compensation practices. Our job titles may span more than one career level. The targeted hiring base salary range for this role is between $147,00 and $183,500 . The actual base pay is dependent upon many factors, including but not limited to: prior work experiences, training/education, transferable skills, business needs, and geographical location. The base pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future. This role may also be eligible for variable pay, equity, and benefits. 

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Coursera is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer and considers all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected class.
 
If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application process, please contact us at accommodations@coursera.org.
 
For California Candidates, please review our CCPA Applicant Notice here.
For our Global Candidates, please review our GDPR Recruitment Notice here.