Operations Manager, Legal

Who are we?

Our mission is to scale intelligence to serve humanity. We’re training and deploying frontier models for developers and enterprises who are building AI systems to power magical experiences like content generation, semantic search, RAG, and agents. We believe that our work is instrumental to the widespread adoption of AI.

We obsess over what we build. Each one of us is responsible for contributing to increasing the capabilities of our models and the value they drive for our customers. We like to work hard and move fast to do what’s best for our customers.

Cohere is a team of researchers, engineers, designers, and more, who are passionate about their craft. Each person is one of the best in the world at what they do. We believe that a diverse range of perspectives is a requirement for building great products.

Join us on our mission and shape the future!

Operations Manager, Legal - Job Description

Location: Remote (North America or the United Kingdom)

Type: Full-time

Why this role?

The legal team at Cohere is dynamic, fast-paced and cross-functional, supporting all areas of the organization by providing timely, robust and practical legal advice and support. This role offers a unique opportunity to design and scale the systems, processes and tools to enable the legal function to operate efficiently and have maximum impact. The Operations Manager will work with the broader legal team to coordinate workflows, streamline cross-functional communication and ensure that legal work is prioritized and executed effectively. The successful candidate will play a central role in shaping how the legal function partners with the business, using data, process and technology to drive consistency, transparency and scalability.

As Operations Manager, Legal, you will:

• Manage the day-to-day operations of the legal function, including planning, prioritization, and tracking of team workstreams and initiatives.

• Act as the point of contact between Legal and cross-functional partners (e.g., Finance, PeopleOps, Sales, Product, go-to-market), ensuring clear and timely two-way communication and coordination.

• Maintain and improve legal processes, playbooks, templates, and standard operating procedures, with a focus on standardization and automation.

• Partner with the finance team to assist with budgeting, forecasting, and tracking legal spend to support financial planning and operational efficiency.

• Implement, administer, and optimize legal technology tools (e.g., contract management via Ironclad, document and knowledge management), including vendor evaluation (via Omnea), onboarding, and training.

• Design and manage intake, triage, and allocation workflows for legal requests, ensuring they are properly scoped, prioritized, and assigned within the legal team.

• Develop and maintain metrics, dashboards, and regular reporting (e.g., volume, cycle times, and other KPIs) to provide visibility into legal work and support informed decision-making.

• Coordinate legal team cadences (team meetings, offsites, quarterly planning, etc.) and drive follow-up on agreed actions and projects.

• Lead and coordinate cross-functional projects involving the legal function - such as contract negotiations, policy rollouts, system migrations, and other strategic initiatives - by driving timelines, aligning stakeholders, and ensuring successful execution.

• Proactively identify and source appropriate tools to support legal operations, partnering with IT, finance, and business stakeholders to assess requirements, run pilots, and implement solutions that improve efficiency, enhance data visibility, and deliver measurable ROI on legal spend and resourcing.

• Support cross-functional projects involving the legal function (e.g., contract negotiations, policy rollouts, system migrations, and other strategic initiatives).

• Maintain and enhance legal knowledge management, ensuring templates, precedents, guidance, and training materials are current, well-organized, and accessible.

You may be a good fit if:

• 3+ years of experience in an operations, project management, or similar role (e.g., business operations, legal operations, practice management, PMO).

• Experience working in a law firm or in-house legal department (preferred but not strictly required).

• A legal qualification (e.g., LLB/JD or equivalent) is a plus, but not mandatory.

• Demonstrated experience improving processes, implementing or managing business systems/tools, and driving change in a fast-paced environment.

• Strong project management and organizational skills, with the ability to manage multiple stakeholders and priorities and deliver against deadlines.

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to translate between legal and non-legal audiences and drive alignment across teams.

• Comfort working with data, including creating basic dashboards or reports and using insights to influence decisions and improvements.

• High degree of ownership and initiative, with a pragmatic and service-oriented mindset.

If some of the above doesn’t line up perfectly with your experience, we still encourage you to apply!

We value and celebrate diversity and strive to create an inclusive work environment for all. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and are committed to providing equal opportunities. Should you require any accommodations during the recruitment process, please submit an Accommodations Request Form, and we will work together to meet your needs.

Full-Time Employees at Cohere enjoy these Perks:

🤝 An open and inclusive culture and work environment 

🧑‍💻 Work closely with a team on the cutting edge of AI research 

🍽 Weekly lunch stipend, in-office lunches & snacks

🦷 Full health and dental benefits, including a separate budget to take care of your mental health 

🐣 100% Parental Leave top-up for up to 6 months

🎨 Personal enrichment benefits towards arts and culture, fitness and well-being, quality time, and workspace improvement

🏙 Remote-flexible, offices in Toronto, New York, San Francisco, London and Paris, as well as a co-working stipend

✈️ 6 weeks of vacation (30 working days!)