Legal Operations Specialist

Company: Talley LLP - (Talley Law Group)
Title: Legal Operations Specialist (Also known as: Legal Operations Coordinator, Legal Operations Associate)
Location: Orange, California 
Schedule: Hybrid (must live within a commutable distance from Orange, California)

About the Company
Talley, LLP and its affiliated entities, Talley Law Group (TLG), and Talley Capital Group (TCG), collectively known as “Talley”, is a full service financial, tax, legal and consulting organization designed to meet the needs of entrepreneurially driven businesses. They look to serve clients as business partners and not merely as providers of traditional accounting or tax services. Talley is continuously in search of more effective ways to improve clients' bottom line and where suitable, seek to act in an advisory role adding knowledge and expertise.
Talley LLP was founded in 1989, with the mission of helping entrepreneurially driven businesses and their owners, along with athletes and high net worth individuals, to manage their financial affairs and to achieve their business objectives profitably and efficiently. The professionals at Talley strive to become the Most Trusted Advisor (MTA) to our clients, providing global solutions to the challenges and opportunities facing our clients and their business.
Talley's service profile has grown and evolved as has its clientele, now incorporating a broad array of services designed to serve the entrepreneur:

• Audit and assurance services, including traditional financial reporting
• Tax compliance
• Tax planning and proactive advice
• Business consulting
• Estate planning, business planning, M&A and tax law services delivered through TLG
• Outsourced accounting, controller and CFO services
• Mergers & acquisition, growth through acquisition and operational consulting delivered through TCG

• Draft, prepare, and manage engagement letters and related onboarding materials for new matters.
• Own the legal intake and triage process, ensuring matters are properly categorized, prioritized, and assigned.
• Maintain real-time visibility into all ongoing projects; track status, deadlines, and attorney assignments.
• Proactively follow up with attorneys on next steps, deliverables, and client commitments.
• Set internal reminders, follow-ups, and escalation points when tasks or milestones are at risk.
• Ensure attorneys and outsourced counsel meet internal deadlines by tracking deliverables, sending timely reminders, escalating delays, and ensuring clarity around next steps.
• Prepare weekly legal department summaries, meeting agendas, matter snapshots, and follow-up lists for the Head of Legal to ensure full visibility into priorities and deadlines.
• Coordinate communications between attorneys, outsourced counsel, and internal departments to ensure timely completion of work.
• Act as the central point of coordination so the Head of Legal always knows where revenue-generating matters stand.

• Develop and refine standardized legal workflows for intake, assignments, tracking, and reporting.
• Monitor database entries completed by the data entry team and ensure accuracy of matter status and performance metrics.
• Update and maintain existing Excel-based reports and project-management-system reports, ensuring data is accurate, complete, and current.
• Improve overall legal workflows by identifying inefficiencies and proposing solutions that increase team productivity.
• Continually assess attorney and outsourced counsel capacity to anticipate workload bottlenecks and proactively rebalance assignments.
• Develop and maintain standard operating procedures (SOPs), templates, and workflow documentation to ensure consistency and clarity across the legal department.
• Ensure adherence to internal legal processes, templates, approval paths, and policy requirements across the department.

• Oversee the assignment and sourcing of outsourced attorneys for various matters.
• Maintain a database of outsourced attorneys, including experience, specialties, and performance history.
• Match projects to the appropriate outsourced attorney based on skill, availability, and deadlines.
• Track progress, deadlines, and deliverables of outsourced counsel; ensure alignment with internal expectations.
• Assist with tracking outsourced counsel costs and supporting alignment with legal spend expectations.

• Track where legal revenue is being generated across matters and provide status summaries for leadership.
• Ensure weekly and monthly revenue reports are correctly updated in Excel and within the project management system.
• Ensure engagement letters, new matters, and workflow timelines align with revenue and business development objectives.

• Administer and maintain legal operations tools (intake systems, matter trackers, shared drives, Excel/Sheets databases).
• Use existing project management and reporting tools to keep matter statuses and revenue indicators accurate and current.
• Recommend tools or automations that reduce manual work.
• Support maintenance of internal knowledge bases and operational documentation.

• Bachelor’s degree required.
• Certifications in Legal Operations, Project Management, or Business Operations a plus.
• Paralegal certificate not required.

• 3–7 years of experience in a legal operations, legal project management, or legal/business coordination role (in-house preferred).
• Proficiency maintaining and updating structured reports in Excel and within project management tools.
• Experience with matter-tracking systems, workflow tools, or operational dashboards.
• Strong background in legal department operations or business operations roles.
• Experience triaging legal intake or managing organizational workflows strongly preferred.

• Strong knowledge of legal terminology, procedures, and documentation.
• Excellent organizational and project management skills; able to juggle multiple deadlines simultaneously.
• Proficiency with legal and project management business software (e.g., Microsoft 365, SecureSafe, Karbon, or similar).
• Analytical mindset with ability to identify and implement process improvements.
• Excellent communication and follow-through skills when coordinating with attorneys and vendors.
• Highly proactive with a strong sense of ownership over deadlines, accuracy, and operational execution.
• Analytical skills to forecast workload needs and identify patterns across matters and revenue-related activities.

• Accurate, timely drafting and completion of engagement letters and project onboarding.
• Clear increase in visibility of matter statuses and elimination of avoidable delays.
• Positive feedback from attorneys regarding follow-ups, tracking, and workflow support.
• Improved accuracy and usefulness of Excel and matter tracking systems.
• Demonstrated ability to keep outsourced counsel aligned, on track, and meeting deadlines.
• Evidence of operational improvements that reduce manual steps or enhance throughput.
• Consistent delivery of clear, concise weekly summaries and reporting that increase leadership’s visibility into priorities, bottlenecks, and business development activity.
• Reduction in attorney time spent on administrative coordination or matter tracking.
• Improved turnaround time from matter intake to assignment, and from assignment to deliverable completion.