Specialist: Data Operations

Mayer Brown is an international law firm positioned to represent the world’s major corporations, funds, and financial institutions in their most important and complex transactions and disputes. We are recognized by our clients as strategic partners with deep commercial instincts and a commitment to creatively anticipating their needs and delivering excellence in everything we do.

We are a collegial, collaborative firm where highly motivated individuals with an unwavering commitment to excellence receive the opportunity, support, and development they need to grow, thrive, and realize their greatest potential all while supporting the Firm’s client service principles of excellence, strategic partnership, commercial instinct, integrated strengths, innovation, and collaboration across our international firm.

If you enjoy working with team members whose defining characteristics are exceptional client service, initiative, professionalism, responsiveness, and adaptability, you may be the person we are seeking to join our Information Technology department in our Chicago office, as a Specialist: Data Operations.

The Specialist: Data Operations serves as the firm’s lead for ensuring data accuracy, taxonomy alignment, and access control compliance across enterprise systems and reporting platforms.  This critical role ensures operational data is correct and reliable, aligns with enterprise taxonomy and data dictionaries, and confirms access controls properly reflect data classification policies and data owner requirements.  

Positioned at the intersection of business and IT teams, this role balances oversight with hands on operational execution.  The Specialist identifies quality issues, enforces governance standards, and represents the Data & Analytics team on key initiatives, ensuring Mayer Brown’s data practices support both strategic initiatives and operational excellence while evolving the firm’s data management framework to meet changing stakeholder needs.

Essential Functions

Areas of Focus

Data Accuracy & Quality Validation

• Serve as the lead for ensuring data accuracy and quality across enterprise systems, monitoring applications and reports to identify and resolve quality issues before they impact business operations.
  • Validate data quality against established standards and identify remediation needs
  • Verify accuracy of data transformations and mappings between systems
  • Document end-to-end data lineage for critical data elements to ensure data accuracy
  • Document and track data quality metrics and issues

Taxonomy & Standards Alignment

• Ensure data aligns with enterprise taxonomy, legal data schemas, and enterprise data dictionaries, maintaining consistency in definitions, values, and classification codes across the enterprise.
  • Ensure consistent implementation of taxonomy classification across key firm systems and reports
  • Validate data values against enterprise data dictionaries and approved legal data schemas
  • Help maintain and evolve comprehensive data definitions to support taxonomy consistency
  • Identify opportunities for standardization and optimization in taxonomy application

Access Control & Data Classification Compliance

• Enforce data classification policies and validate user access controls to ensure they align with data owner requirements and governance standards across enterprise systems.
  • Monitor and enforce compliance with data owner requirements and access control protocols
  • Validate that access controls align with data classification policies and data owner specifications
  • Partner with IT and technical teams to implement access control requirements

Project & Operational Oversight

• Balance day-to-day operational monitoring with project representation, ensuring new implementations maintain data accuracy, adhere to taxonomy standards, and properly configure data access controls.
  • Ensure project data requirements align with enterprise taxonomy definitions and standards
  • Review project specifications to validate adherence to data management methodology
  • Ensure project access control configurations align with data classification policies
  • Propose and document workflow changes to support evolving data and taxonomy requirements
  • Validate data migration and integration activities for governance compliance

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Governance

• Bridge business units, IT teams, and data owners to ensure seamless alignment of data accuracy requirements, taxonomy standards, and access control needs across departments and systems.
  • Partner with Business Services and Practice teams to understand evolving data requirements
  • Facilitate working sessions to align classification needs and access requirements across departments
  • Collaborate with business services teams to improve data entry processes and eliminate redundancies
  • Communicate data standards, taxonomy requirements, and access control policies to stakeholders

Education/Training/Certifications:

• Required: Bachelor’s degree in Information Management, Data Analytics, Business Administration, Computer Science, or a related discipline.
• Preferred: Master’s degree in Information Management, Data Analytics, Business Administration, Computer Science, or a related discipline.
• Industry-recognized certifications (preferred):
  • Certified Data Management Professional (CDMP) – DAMA International
  • Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) – International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA)
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Analyst Associate or equivalent certification in AWS/GCP

Professional Experience:

• 5-7 years of experience in data analysis, business analysis, or technical documentation, preferably in a legal, professional services, or financial services environment.
• Proven experience in documenting business processes, data flows, and system integrations using tools such as Microsoft Visio and Lucidchart.
• Hands on experience with data profiling, data quality analysis, and metadata management within enterprise systems and reporting environments.
• Strong understanding of enterprise data documentation practices, including data dictionaries, metadata repositories, and report catalogs.
• Demonstrated ability to coordinate across business and IT teams, translating business needs into structured, actionable technical documentation.
• Experience supporting data governance initiatives, ensuring alignment with industry standards, regulatory compliance, and firmwide data policies.
• Preferred: experience in an international law firm or multinational professional services firm, working with multijurisdictional data policies, privacy regulations, and compliance requirements.

Technical Skills:

• Data Documentation & Process Modeling: Strong proficiency in Microsoft Visio, Miro, or similar tools for creating system diagrams, data lineage mapping, and technical documentation.
• Data Analysis: Strong Proficiency in SQL and Excel for data extraction and manipulation; familiarity with Python (pandas, NumPy) for data analysis and manipulation is a plus.
• Database & Metadata Management: Experience working with relational databases (e.g., SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL) and metadata management tools such as Collibra or Informatica to document and track enterprise data assets.
• ETL & Data Integration: Familiarity with ETL processes and tools such as Talend, Azure Data Factory, or SSIS for supporting data movement and transformation workflows.
• Project & Change Management: Familiarity with Agile, Scrum, or PMO frameworks, using tools like JIRA, Confluence, or Microsoft DevOps for workflow tracking and collaboration on initiatives.

Performance Traits:

• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to communicate effectively and professionally at all levels of the firm, including senior leadership, technical teams, and external vendors.
• Ability to work in a diverse, cross-functional team environment, effectively supporting the demanding needs of a global law firm.
• Proven ability to work under pressure and manage multiple priorities, meeting deadlines in a fast-paced environment with shifting priorities.
• Must be a self-starter, demonstrating a high level of initiative in problem-solving, process improvement, and driving data management best practices.
• Strong customer service orientation, anticipating stakeholder needs, proactively addressing concerns, and exercising independent judgment.
• Exceptional attention to detail and organizational skills, ensuring accuracy in documentation, data integrity, and process adherence across multiple projects.
• Maintains confidentiality and exercises discretion.
• Demonstrates strong strategic thinking and problem-solving skills, analyzing complex data challenges and developing structured, actionable solutions.
• Ability to present complex data concepts to nontechnical stakeholders, translating technical information into clear, business-friendly insights.
• Collaborate effectively across departments and organizational levels, ensuring alignment between business needs, IT capabilities, and governance policies.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a focus on delivering business value through data-driven solutions to enhance reporting, data governance, and decision making.
• Deep understanding of data analytics, business intelligence, and data management principles

The typical pay scale for this position is between $107,000 and $142,000, although the actual wage or salary could be lower or higher if the candidate’s education, experience, skills and internal pay alignment are different from those specified. 

The above is a general description of the essential duties associated with this position and does not represent an exhaustive or comprehensive list of all duties.

The Firm may modify and amend this job description at any time at its sole discretion. Nothing herein creates a contract of employment or otherwise modifies the at-will nature of employment.

We offer competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits, including medical/dental/vision/life/and AD&D insurance, 401(k) savings plan, back-up childcare and eldercare, generous paid time off (PTO), as well as opportunities for professional development and growth.

Thank you for your interest in Mayer Brown. We are committed to providing equal opportunity and reasonable accommodations to applicants and employees with disabilities and disabled veterans. To request a reasonable accommodation related to the application process and/or job interview, please email uslateralrecruiting@mayerbrown.com. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.

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