US Legal Operations Associate Director

Job Description:

As a privately-owned, biopharmaceutical company, Ferring pioneers and delivers life-changing therapies that help people build families and live better lives. Our independence helps us cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit and long-term perspective that enables us to achieve growth and scale, while remaining agile and true to our ‘people first’ philosophy. Built on a 70-year plus commitment to science and research, Ferring is relentless in its pursuit of science that drives powerful discoveries and therapies to help people build families, stay healthy, and stand up to the world’s oldest enemy: disease.  

As the US Legal Operations Associate Director, you will be responsible in helping drive and implement operational success of Ferring’s US Chief Legal Office (CLO) team, creating strategy, processes, and practices to transform and improve day-to-day efficiency and effectiveness, working in coordination with Global Legal Operations and the global CLO organization. The US CLO team (Legal, IP, Compliance, Privacy, and IP – 17 people with over EUR 8m in total budget) is a part of Ferring’s US business (with over 900 employees and over USD 1 billion in sales), which is critical to Ferring’s current and future success and the efficient, effective provision of CLO services is essential to achieve this.

With Ferring, you will be joining a recognized leader, identified as one of “The World’s Most Innovative Companies” by Fast Company, and honored by Fortune with inclusion on its “Change the World List,” for addressing society’s unmet needs. Ferring US is also Great Places to Work® Certified, distinguishing it as one of the best companies to work for in the country. 

Responsibilities:  

• Collaborate with members of the CLO team and business partners to continuously seek out and lead process improvement initiatives that further the implementation of the CLO Services Model. 

• Identify data within CLO, Ferring, and third party systems and processes that can be used to drive continuous improvement of CLO services.

• Implement continuous improvement in CLO services through a strong business partner focus, active listening skills, a goal of team success, and involving business partners in every step of the change process.

• Support the continuous improvement of Ferring’s contract management process within the US organization in coordination with the global lead, with a focus on stakeholders’ needs, continuous process improvements, and continued improvement in technology solutions.

• Facilitate and manage the process for sourcing, negotiation, selection, and performance of law firms and external service providers (ALSPs) consistent with global guidelines, leading to a quick and simple onboarding of law firms and vendors and a close management of budget.

• Liaise with ALSPs in relationship to the contract management process, with a focus on continuous improvement of the process and improvement of services to business partners.

• Assist in and contribute to the preparation of timely and accurate CLO budgets and forecasts to actively contribute to the accuracy and usefulness of the CLO team’s forecasts.

• Work effectively with our IT partners to enhance existing (e.g. icertis, Brightflag, Anaqua, OneTrust, Polaris, Dow Jones) to enable streamlined team collaboration and workflow automation within the CLO team and among business partners.

• Partner with the Global Legal Operations team on additional project / initiatives as applicable and collaborate, learn, participate in industry conferences, benchmarking, networking, to provide recommendations on best practice and latest advancements.

Requirements: 

• Minimum of a combined 7 years’ experience in legal operations with an in-house legal department or a law firm, and other relevant areas, such as IT, Finance, Project Management

• University degree in business, finance, technology, or other relevant areas

• Significant experience working in a multi-national corporate environment

• Demonstrated experience in process efficiency, including identifying opportunities for improvement, building an implementation plan, and implementation

• Demonstrated ability to lead succe