Legal Operation, Associate Director

Our mission is to detect cancer early, when it can be cured. We are working to change the trajectory of cancer mortality and bring stakeholders together to adopt innovative, safe, and effective technologies that can transform cancer care.

We are a healthcare company, pioneering new technologies to advance early cancer detection. We have built a multi-disciplinary organization of scientists, engineers, and physicians and we are using the power of next-generation sequencing (NGS), population-scale clinical studies, and state-of-the-art computer science and data science to overcome one of medicine’s greatest challenges.

GRAIL is headquartered in the bay area of California, with locations in Washington, D.C., North Carolina, and the United Kingdom. It is supported by leading global investors and pharmaceutical, technology, and healthcare companies.

For more information, please visit

GRAIL is seeking a highly experienced and strategic Head of Legal Operations to lead, mature, and scale the operational infrastructure of our Legal Department. This role serves as the head of Legal Operations. The Head of Legal Operations will drive operational strategy; technology and process optimization; budget management; and data and analytics.

This is a high-impact position requiring deep Legal Operations expertise, exceptional business acumen, and the ability to influence across a complex, regulated environment. The ideal candidate is a forward-thinking operations leader who thrives in a fast-paced, mission-driven organization.

This role is based in Menlo Park, California, and will move to Sunnyvale, California in Fall 2026. It offers a flexible work arrangement, with the ability to work from GRAIL's office or from home. Our current flexible work arrangement policy requires that a minimum of 40%, or 16 hours, of your total work week be on-site. Your specific schedule, determined in collaboration with your manager, will align with team and business needs and could exceed the 40% requirement for the site.

At our Menlo Park campus, Tuesdays and Thursdays are the key days where we encourage on-site presence to engage in events and on-site activities.

• Leadership & Strategy
• Serve as the senior operational leader for the Legal Department, defining and executing the Legal Operations strategy in alignment with GRAIL’s enterprise goals.
• Operate with significant autonomy and provide strategic counsel to senior Legal leadership on operational performance, resource planning, technology investments, and process maturity.
• Lead and develop a high-performing Legal Operations team, including functions spanning technology, knowledge management, analytics, project management, and vendor management.

• Oversee end-to-end process improvement initiatives, including workflow automation, cross-functional coordination, and operational risk mitigation.
• Establish operational governance, including documentation standards, policy frameworks, and legal process controls.

• Own the legal technology roadmap and evaluate, implement, and manage enterprise tools (e.g., e-billing and matter management, legal intake/workflow, AI-enabled legal technology databases, and compliance platforms).
• Partner closely with IT, Cybersecurity, Finance, Procurement, and Accounting to ensure legal technology solutions integrate effectively with enterprise systems.
• Oversee electronic discovery.
• Maintain and improve legal forms and templates; handle overflow agreement support (including NDAs); and help manage the legal intake process.
• Manage records retention, including preservation and destruction.
• Oversee litigation administrative support, including record requests, reviews, and production.

• Build and lead a data-driven performance program for Legal, tracking KPIs such as contracting velocity, matter lifecycle management, outside counsel spend, cost trends, and service metrics.
• Translate data insights into actionable recommendations.

• Direct spend management activities and manage detailed aspects of the Legal Department’s budgeting, forecasting, accruals, and cost optimization…