The posting
Wilson Sonsini is the premier legal advisor to technology, life sciences, and other growth enterprises worldwide. We represent companies at every stage of development, from entrepreneurial start-ups to multibillion-dollar global corporations, as well as the venture firms, private equity firms, and investment banks that finance and advise them. The firm has approximately 1,100 attorneys in 17 offices: 13 in the U.S., two in China, and two in Europe. Our broad spectrum of practices and entrepreneurial spirit allow exceptional opportunities for professional achievement and career growth.
The Pricing & Legal Project Management (LPM) team supports the firm’s attorneys with full spectrum strategic financial and commercial insights, including: creation and management of alternative fee arrangements, development of pricing strategies, and application of creative approaches to important business problems that impact client acquisition and retention. These objectives enhance operational efficiency, client satisfaction, and firm profitability. The team supports a broad range of practice areas across all departments and offices by delivering strategic advice, leveraging advanced project management principles, and integrating technology solutions to maintain and advance the firm’s premier market position.
The Senior Pricing Manager will lead and manage pricing requests, while having responsibility (either directly or indirectly) for overseeing a team of analysts. The Senior Manager will ensure client and attorney responsiveness while presenting sophisticated pricing recommendations that balance market competitiveness with firm financial targets. This will entail both maintaining existing processes and systems, while driving the design and implementation of more streamlined procedures, including enhanced reporting and comparable analysis. The Senior Manager will work with Pricing, Pricing Operations, and LPM leadership to create and refine pricing infrastructure. Additionally, they will develop, iterate, and utilize sophisticated pricing and profitability models to support lawyer pricing requests and other pricing projects and initiatives.
This position is available as a fully virtual work schedule.
Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:
- Develop, define, and implement creative pricing strategies based on the firm's financial objectives.
- Collaborate with stakeholders across functions, including lawyers, Finance, IT, and Business Development, to create tailored pricing solutions for our clients, prepare RFP responses, and integrate pricing strategies within the firm's broader operational and technological frameworks.
- Heavily support the annual client rate review and negotiation processes, ensuring competitive positioning while maintaining firm profitability, including analyzing and recommending rates across seniority tiers, geographies, and practice areas.
- Collaborate closely with LPM, Pricing Operations, Finance, and IT to leverage data analytics and technology solutions, such as Power BI and SQL, to refine pricing models and decision-making processes.
- Utilize financial modeling to evaluate pricing structures and their impact on the firm's bottom line, incorporating best practices in financial reporting and internal controls.
- Collaborate with the Pricing Operations and LPM teams to develop workflows that highlight opportunities for improved financial performance via annual client rate review.
- Leverage LPM principles and resources to enhance pricing models and profitability analyses.
- Conduct market analyses to identify pricing opportunities and threats, presenting findings and strategic recommendations to senior management.
- Proactively assess workload demands and fluctuations, while prudently managing expectations accordingly with stakeholders.
- Continue to improve upon pricing infrastructure by collaborating with lawyers and Knowledge Management to define key product segments, profitability levers, and distinct attributes for each area of practice.
- Leverage the firm’s BI platform to facilitate development and visualization of complex analyses.
- Foster a culture of continuous process improvement and innovation within the Pricing team, encouraging the adoption of new technologies and methodologies to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
- Proactively increase subject matter knowledge through a combination of self-learning and collaboration with firm lawyers and SMEs.
- Contribute to innovation and digital transformation initiatives, exploring the use of AI and machine learning to optimize pricing strategies and client value.
- Draft and edit highly professional, accurate, and actionable email correspondence.
- Assist with other team deliverables as needed.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in finance, economics, accounting, or related field; an MBA or equivalent is a plus.
- 7+ years of financial analysis and/or pricing experience in a professional services setting (2+ years of legal industry experience required).
- Pricing experience and familiarity with the following practices is a plus: Litigation, Regulatory & Compliance, Antitrust (including both litigation and actions involving government regulatory bodies), Patents (prosecution and litigation), and Technology Transactions.
- Extensive financial modelling experience and ability to maintain complex spreadsheets (creative use of formulas, sophisticated data presentation, pivot tables, etc.).
- Proficiency in financial software and tools, including SQL, VBA, Power BI, and Aderant is a plus.
- Flexibility to adjust work schedule according to workload demands.
- Pacific or Mountain time zone preferred.
Skills & Knowledge:
- Demonstrated experience in developing complex pricing strategies and managing large data sets to drive decision-making, including the ability to analyze data effectively and present findings to senior management and lawyer leadership.
- Self-motivated with a strong sense of urgency and the ability to work under pressure in a fast-paced environment.
- A strong commitment to professionalism, teamwork, excellence, ownership, and accountability.
- Highly responsive with a customer-service mindset.
- Expert delegation skills, with an ability to iterate work product with junior staff in a fast-paced environment while maintaining quality.
- A proactive self-starter, with a drive to grow and enhance the function.
- Effective leadership capabilities with a proven history of managing and developing teams (whether direct reports or cross-functional).
- Ability to communicate effectively and efficiently with staff, senior leadership, and lawyers.
- Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills capable of building and maintaining strong relationships.
- Excellent negotiation skills, capable of effectively articulating the reasoning driving pricing strategies and influencing key stakeholders.
- Practiced resourcefulness with an ability for recommending potential solutions based on investigation and/or experience.
- Considerable familiarity with LPM practices and how they intersect with pricing strategy to drive efficiency and client value.
- Ability to develop, refine, and improve utilization of pricing tools.
- Highly effective creating business process documentation.
- Strong organizational skills.
- Comfortable with analyzing and managing data.
- Excellent analytical and creative problem-solving abilities.
- High degree of efficiency and expertise in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
- Exceptional attention to detail.
The primary location for this job posting is in Palo Alto, but other locations may be listed. The actual base pay offered will depend upon a variety of factors, including but not limited to the selected candidate’s qualifications, years of relevant experience, level of education, professional certifications and licenses, and work location. The anticipated pay range for this position is as follows:
Palo Alto, New York, San Francisco: $163,200 - $220,800 per year.
Austin, Boston, Boulder, Century City, Delaware, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, San Diego, Seattle, and all other locations: $147,050 - $198,950 per year.
The compensation for this position may include a discretionary year-end merit bonus based on performance. We offer a highly competitive salary and benefits package.
Benefits information can be found here. Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE).
