Fractional Chief Operating Officer - Personal Injury Firm (COO)

Role Overview

The Fractional Chief Operating Officer (COO) will lead a six-month operational improvement initiative designed to bring greater consistency, accountability, and structure to the firm's daily operations.

Working directly with firm ownership, legal leadership, and HR/Talent Management, the Fractional COO will evaluate how work moves through the firm, identify opportunities to improve efficiency, document standardized workflows, and establish clear expectations for team and leadership performance.

This is a hands-on, project-based role focused on building practical, sustainable operational systems that support the firm's attorneys, case managers, paralegals, and administrative teams.

The ultimate goal is simple: Build an operation that runs consistently, holds people accountable, and doesn't depend on firm ownership to manage every detail.

Core Responsibilities

1. Legal Process & Workflow Development

Identify, develop, standardize, and document the firm's legal and operational workflows, with particular attention to the personal injury case lifecycle.

Responsibilities include:

• Evaluate existing workflows from client intake through case resolution and file closure.
• Meet with attorneys, paralegals, case managers, and support staff to understand how work is currently completed.
• Identify inconsistent processes, unnecessary administrative work, communication gaps, and operational bottlenecks.
• Develop clear, practical standard operating procedures (SOPs) for each major stage of the case lifecycle.
• Establish ownership, handoffs, escalation procedures, and expectations for recurring tasks.
• Create standardized checklists, templates, and workflows that can be easily accessed and followed by the team.
• Identify opportunities to improve case management software usage, automation, and reporting.

Expected Outcome: A centralized, documented set of operational procedures that establishes how work should be completed, who is responsible, and when action is expected.

2. Pod Structure, Metrics & Accountability

Develop a consistent operational framework for the firm's legal pods to improve visibility, workload management, and individual and team accountability.

Responsibilities include:

• Evaluate the existing pod structure, responsibilities, reporting relationships, and distribution of work.
• Define responsibilities and expectations for each position within a pod.
• Establish practical key performance indicators (KPIs) that reflect case progress, quality, responsiveness, and operational efficiency.
• Develop pod-level scorecards and reporting tools that allow leadership to monitor performance.
• Establish recurring pod meetings, case reviews, and accountability check-ins.
• Create clear escalation paths for delayed cases, missed deadlines, and workflow breakdowns.
• Identify workload imbalances and opportunities to improve case assignments and capacity.

Expected Outcome: A repeatable pod operating model with clear responsibilities, measurable expectations, and a straightforward system for evaluating operational performance.

3. Leadership Coaching & Operational Accountability

Partner directly with the firm's leadership team to strengthen management practices, improve adherence to established procedures, and create consistent accountability throughout the organization.

Responsibilities include:

• Coach attorneys and firm leadership on implementing and reinforcing operational procedures.
• Establish leadership expectations for monitoring workflow adherence, addressing performance concerns, and following through on commitments.
• Facilitate regular operational leadership meetings to review performance, identify obstacles, and determine corrective action.
• Help leaders recognize and address recurring breakdowns in communication, delegation, and follow-through.
• Develop simple management tools that support productive one-on-ones, team meetings, and performance conversations.
• Reinforce consistent decision-making, communication, and accountability practices across the firm.

Expected Outcome: A leadership team that understands operational expectations, actively manages performance, and consistently reinforces established processes without continued dependence on the Fractional COO.

4. HR & Talent Management Partnership

Work collaboratively with HR/Talent Management to ensure the firm's operational structure, performance expectations, and staffing decisions are aligned.

Responsibilities include:

• Partner with HR to clarify job responsibilities, reporting relationships, and performance expectations.
• Translate operational KPIs into meaningful inputs for employee performance evaluations.
• Support the development of consistent performance management and accountability practices.
• Evaluate pod staffing, workload distribution, and operational capacity.
• Identify skill gaps, training needs, and opportunities for role development.
• Provide operational recommendations related to hiring priorities, staffing adjustments, and organizational structure.
• Support leaders in addressing performance concerns tied to process adherence, productivity, and role expectations.

Expected Outcome: A clear connection between operational performance, employee expectations, leadership accountability, and the firm's talent management practices.

Project Deliverables

At the conclusion of the six-month engagement, the firm should have:

1. Documented Legal Operations Playbook: A centralized library of approved workflows, SOPs, checklists, and responsibilities for agreed-upon processes throughout the case lifecycle.
2. Standardized Pod Operating Model: Defined responsibilities, workflows, handoffs, meeting expectations, and escalation procedures.
3. Operational KPI Scorecards: A manageable set of performance indicators, with clear definitions, ownership, and reporting expectations.
4. Leadership Accountability Framework: Defined management routines, coaching expectations, and methods for addressing operational breakdowns.
5. Performance & Capacity Recommendations: Operational insights and recommendations to support HR-led evaluations, staffing decisions, and workforce planning.
6. Sustainability Plan: Assigned internal owners, procedures for maintaining documentation, and a practical roadmap for continued operational improvement.

Engagement Structure

Duration: Six months

Engagement Type: Project-based Fractional COO

Primary Partnership: Firm Owner/Managing Partner, Legal Leadership, and HR/Talent Management

Approach: Hands-on discovery, process development, collaborative implementation, leadership coaching, and measurable operational improvement.

Success Measurement: The engagement will be evaluated based on completion and adoption of agreed-upon workflows, implementation of pod-level accountability measures, leadership adherence to established procedures, and the firm's ability to sustain improvements independently.

Guiding Principle

The goal is not to build a more complicated law firm.

It is to make the existing firm easier to run.

Every workflow, metric, meeting, and accountability measure should serve a practical purpose: helping people do their jobs better, helping leaders lead more effectively, and giving firm ownership confidence that the operation is running as it should.

Required Qualifications & Experience

Direct, hands-on experience implementing operational improvements within personal injury law firms is mandatory. We are specifically seeking professionals who have successfully completed this type of work before, not individuals looking to transition into legal operations or apply general business consulting experience to a new industry.

Qualified candidates must demonstrate:

• Direct Personal Injury Law Firm Experience: Previous experience serving in a COO, Director of Operations, Legal Operations Director, Practice Administrator, or comparable operational leadership capacity within one or more personal injury law firms.
• Proven Process Development & Implementation: Demonstrated experience personally identifying, developing, documenting, and implementing legal workflows and standard operating procedures (SOPs) within a personal injury practice. Experience must extend beyond assessments and recommendations to actual implementation.
• Comprehensive Understanding of the Personal Injury Case Lifecycle: Strong working knowledge of intake, case opening, investigation, treatment coordination, medical records collection, demand preparation, negotiation, litigation, settlement, disbursement, and case closure.
• Experience Structuring and Managing Legal Pods: Prior experience developing, restructuring, or improving pod-based legal teams, including defining responsibilities, establishing handoffs, balancing caseloads, and creating accountability across attorneys, case managers, paralegals, and support personnel.
• KPI Development & Performance Accountability: Demonstrated experience establishing and implementing measurable operational KPIs, performance scorecards, case progression metrics, and accountability systems specifically within personal injury firms.
• Leadership Coaching & Change Management: Proven ability to coach attorneys, legal managers, and pod leaders on operational expectations, process adherence, team accountability, and consistent management practices.
• Staffing & Capacity Planning: Experience evaluating caseload distribution, staffing ratios, individual productivity, and organizational capacity within personal injury practices, including collaboration with HR or firm leadership on performance management.
• Legal Case Management Systems: Hands-on experience with personal injury case management platforms such as SmartAdvocate, Filevine, Litify, or comparable systems, including workflow configuration, reporting, and operational optimization.
• Demonstrated Project Results: Ability to provide specific examples of completed operational improvement projects within personal injury law firms, including the challenges addressed, processes implemented, and measurable improvements achieved.
• Independent Project Leadership: Experience independently leading operational initiatives from discovery through implementation, leadership adoption, and transition to internal ownership.

Additional Requirements

• Ability to commit to a structured, approximately six-month client engagement.
• Strong written process documentation and leadership communication skills.
• Comfortable working directly with firm owners, managing attorneys, and legal support teams.
• Ability to simplify complex operations without introducing unnecessary administrative burdens.
• Willingness to provide examples of prior work, redacted deliverables, or professional references demonstrating relevant personal injury operations experience.

Important Qualification Notice

Experience in general business operations, corporate COO roles, or legal practices outside of personal injury will not independently satisfy these requirements.

We are seeking professionals who have already built, implemented, and successfully managed the operational systems our clients need.

Candidates should be prepared to discuss specific personal injury law firms they have supported, the operational changes they personally led, and the outcomes of those engagements.

Project rate will be determine collaboratively.