Paralegal Legal Operations Analyst, Intellectual Property

Paralegal/ Legal Operations Analyst Intellectual Property

Location: Raleigh NC or Beaverton OR- hybrid schedule

This is a high-impact opportunity for someone who wants to help shape how a modern IP function operates. Ralliants IP team protects the innovation that drives our business and this role sits at the intersection of intellectual property legal operations data technology and continuous improvement. We are looking for someone who is proactive takes ownership notices when something is not working and has the initiative to fix it or help make it better. You will help keep patent and trademark work moving strengthen outside legal provider coordination support disciplined forecasting accruals and budget management and turn IP and spend data into clear Power BI dashboards leaders can use. You will also help document standard work improve repeatable processes and expand practical automation and responsible AI-enabled workflows including opportunities to create AI agents that make legal work faster clearer and more scalable.

What youll do

IP prosecution & portfolio support

• Coordinate trademark portfolio activities including searches filing support prosecution tracking registrations renewals and related portfolio maintenance.
• Coordinate invention disclosures provisional filings nonprovisional applications and foreign prosecution in partnership with in-house counsel and outside firms.
• Track critical dates filings and outside counsel actions; confirm completion of key milestones and proactively surface timing cost or process risks.
• Support novelty freedom-to-operate and landscape search workflows by coordinating with counsel organizing results and tracking related deadlines and decisions.
• Facilitate invention disclosure triage and working sessions; capture decisions owners and follow-up actions to keep stakeholders aligned.

Legal operations systems & automation

• Develop lightweight AI agents bots automations and work-management solutions using tools such as Microsoft Copilot Azure AI Planner Power Automate and SharePoint to reduce manual work improve visibility and scale repeatable legal operations processes.
• Administer optimize and support adoption of core IP and legal operations systems.
• Maintain structured intake lists matter queues and documentation so requests attachments decisions and actions are complete current and auditable.
• Proactively identify gaps friction points data-quality issues and broken or inefficient processes; recommend and implement practical fixes that improve quality speed visibility and user experience.

Vendor management invoicing & budget support

• Help manage and track IP budgets on a monthly and annual basis including spend forecasts accrual inputs budget-to-actual reporting variance explanations and leadership-ready budget visibility.
• Serve as day-to-day coordinator for outside counsel and service providers including clean PO/statement of work setup invoice follow-up on-time payment support and regular provider touchpoints to improve forecasting accrual accuracy and budget discipline.
• Track IP operating spend across tools providers and matters including CPI WebTMS Novagraaf/Clarivate PatSnap outside counsel annuity providers and other IP vendors.
• Partner with outside legal providers to obtain timely matter-level estimates forecast updates accrual information and explanations for material changes in expected spend.
• Document and improve standardized invoice intake review approval and payment-support processes using Legal Tracker and related systems.

Analytics & reporting

• Create maintain and continuously improve Power BI dashboards for IP portfolio spend operational and KPI reporting ensuring stakeholders have clear reliable and actionable visibility.
• Own and manage the data used in Power BI dashboards including data intake cleansing validation refresh processes source documentation and quality controls across IP finance and legal operations systems.
• Connect IP assets to products business metrics spend and portfolio priorities to support ROI analysis and informed decision-making.
• Produce recurring dashboards and reports for filing activity spend versus budget annuity exposure cycle times aging and operational performance; help drive follow-up actions with the IP team.

Cross functional collaboration

• Collaborate with engineers product leaders Finance/AP and operating-company stakeholders to reduce friction improve visibility and keep IP work moving efficiently.

What youll bring

Must-have qualifications

• Minimum 7 years of experience in an IP paralegal IP operations or legal operations role supporting patent and trademark portfolios; in-house experience preferred.
• Experience supporting trademark searches clearance workflows filing decisions prosecution renewals and portfolio maintenance.
• Hands-on familiarity with IP systems and data ideally including CPI WebTMS PatSnap Questel and annuity providers such as Clarivate/Novagraaf.
• Experience coordinating outside counsel novelty/FTO work matter documentation deadlines and follow-up actions.
• Proficiency with Microsoft 365 including Excel SharePoint Teams Power BI Planner and Power Automate with demonstrated ability to build dashboards manage reporting datasets and create simple flows trackers and data-driven legal operations tools.
• Comfort working with Finance/AP outside counsel and legal service providers on POs invoice exceptions vendor onboarding accruals spend forecasts budget tracking and variance management.
• Willingness to create practical AI agents and AI-enabled workflows; demonstrated experience building AI agents bots or related workflow tools is strongly preferred.
• Proactive ownership mindset with a demonstrated ability to identify issues fix what needs fixing document improvements and drive continuous improvement without waiting to be asked.
• Clear concise communication and the ability to drive alignment across legal engineering product and finance.

Nice to have

• Paralegal certificate and/or IP-specific accreditation.
• Experience with open-source software governance and license request workflows.
• Prior work consolidating multi-opco IP finance or operational data and presenting insights for leadership through Power BI or similar reporting tools.
• Experience creating practical AI agents bots or AI-enabled workflow tools that improve legal operational or reporting processes.

Success in 612 months looks like

• Automation and AIwins:at least two manual processes replaced by simple documented automations or practical AI agents in tools such as Copilot Azure AI Planner Power Automate or SharePoint.
• Outside counsel cost discipline:measurable reduction or avoidance of outside counsel spend particularly for trademark-related work through improved workflows forecasting and provider management.
• Continuous improvement:Ralliant Business System tools are applied to simplify work improve quality and reduce rework across core IP and legal operations processes.
• Proactive problem solving:recurring pain points data gaps workflow issues and process breakdowns are identified early fixed thoughtfully and converted into better standard work.
• Standard work created and documented:repeatable processes for key IP budget reporting data-management and automation workflows are documented easy to follow and adopted by the team.
• On time no surprises docket:deadline adherence and audit-ready records across matters.
• Cleaner AP flow & budgetpredictability:invoices processed within SLA; outside legal provider forecasts and accruals collected on time; budget vs. actuals tracked monthly with clear variance explanations and corrective actions.
• Actionable portfolio visibility:Power BI dashboards linking assets to products margins spend cycle times and priorities are maintained trusted and used in IP reviews.
• Reliable reporting data:dashboard source data is documented refreshed quality-checked and managed so leaders can rely on the information for portfolio and budget decisions.

Tools youll use here

CPI (docketing) Claim Master WebTMS PatSnap Questel Novagraaf/Clarivate annuities Microsoft 365 (Teams SharePoint Excel Power BI Planner Power Automate) Microsoft Copilot Microsoft Azure and Azure AI Legal Tracker and the Ralliant Business System.

How we work

We operate as a collaborative Law & Compliance team focused on enabling the business improving how work gets done and raising issues early so the right stakeholders can solve them quickly. We value people who take initiative fix problems at the source document what they learn and look for practical ways to make

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