Manager, Legal Contracts

About the role

This Knoxville, TN on-site role provides strategic and operational leadership for enterprise contracting and agreement management for the Legal department. Oversees the contract operations framework, including intake, contract lifecycle management (CLM), governance, repository practices, and technology enablement.

Coordinates across Legal, Procurement, Finance, Technology, and business stakeholders to create consistent, scalable, and business-focused contracting processes. Establishes program priorities, service standards, controls, and a multi-year roadmap to improve contract visibility, stakeholder experience, compliance, and operational performance while preserving appropriate legal review and decision-making by counsel.

• Lead the enterprise contract operations program and define the operating model for agreements across intake, drafting support, review, approval, execution, storage, amendment, renewal, obligation tracking, and closeout.
• Own the CLM strategy, governance model, product roadmap, enhancement portfolio, adoption plan, and operating standards in partnership with Legal, Technology, Procurement, Finance, and business stakeholders.
• Establish and maintain governance for contract templates, clause libraries, playbooks, approval authorities, contract metadata, repository standards, access controls, retention requirements, and exception handling in coordination with legal subject matter owners.
• Oversee contract repository integrity and lifecycle controls, including standards for executed agreements, amendments, related documents, metadata completeness, renewal dates, obligations, audit trails, and records readiness.
• Plan and direct testing, change management, communications, training, documentation, and adoption activities for new contract processes, templates, workflows, integrations, and system enhancements.
• Build a scalable contract operations capability through documented procedures, role clarity, resource planning, stakeholder forums, and a prioritized continuous improvement roadmap.
• Complete other duties as assigned.

Qualifications & Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Finance, or related field required
• Minimum 5 years' experience in years of contract management, legal operations, procurement, or related experience
• This position does not support immigration sponsorship. To be considered you must have the legal right to work in United States without additional sponsorship.
• We are seeking applicants with a local presence in Knoxville, TN or the surrounding communities.

Specialized Knowledge

• Experience overseeing/managing CLM platforms, workflow and process management, contract repositories, contract metadata administration, electronic signature platforms, reporting/dashboards, process documentation, and Microsoft Office or comparable enterprise systems.