Director of Legal Engagement

With 500+ professionals and 350+ business professionals, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP (www.manatt.com), is a multidisciplinary, integrated national professional services firm known for quality and an extraordinary commitment to clients. The Firm’s groundbreaking approach—bringing together legal services, advocacy and business strategy—differentiates Manatt from its competitors and positions the Firm to provide a distinct and compelling value proposition. Opportunity The Director of Legal Engagement & Optimization will be a senior member of the Talent team, responsible for partnering with Business Group Leaders, Business Unit Leaders, and Attorney Leadership to drive strategic attorney staffing, workload optimization, development alignment, and talent sustainability across the Firm’s legal practices. This role plays a critical connective function between practice leadership, practice management, recruiting, and training and development, performance and advancement teams to ensuring that the Firm’s attorney resources are deployed effectively in support of client service, attorney growth, and Firm profitability. Key Responsibilities Attorney Staffing, Utilization & Optimization Develop and implement the Firm’s attorney staffing and resource optimization strategy, aligning matter demand, pipeline projections, attorney skill sets, seniority mix, and development needs with client service requirements across practices and offices. Establish and maintain staffing policies, workflows, and governance structures to support consistent, transparent, and equitable attorney work allocation. Analyze matter pipelines, demand forecasts, and utilization trends to identify staffing risks, hiring needs, leverage opportunities, and structural constraints. Collaborate with Business Group Leaders, Business Unit Leaders, and designated staffing attorneys to oversee attorney work assignment processes and proactively manage capacity, utilization, and workload balance. Track and interpret key attorney staffing and utilization metrics, translating insights into actionable recommendations that support productivity while balancing attorney development, engagement, and well-being. Attorney Development & Performance Management In close partnership with Training and Development and Performance and Advancement teams, support the attorney performance review cycle by helping ensure reviews are timely, calibrated, and grounded in workload and matter experience data. Collaborate with Practice Leaders to identify high‑performing attorneys as well as attorneys facing specific challenges, facilitating targeted coaching, mentoring, or development interventions. Support the implementation of review feedback and development plans, working with Talent Team members to align attorneys’ matter exposure with growth and advancement goals. Integration, Engagement & Retention Partner with Strategic Growth, Legal Training, Practice Management and other business professionals to