Overview
Norah leads the firm’s Legal Operations department, a group dedicated to improving firm performance, optimizing legal service delivery and accomplishing the strategic goals of the firm and its practice groups.
Legal Operations at Fredrikson includes several diverse teams. The Practice Management team helps the firm’s practice groups develop and implement strategic plans to meet their business goals. Attorney Development is charged with onboarding, training, and integrating new attorneys as well as attorney professional development and talent management. Research & Knowledge Management (RKM), in addition to providing legal research and competitive intelligence, develops innovative solutions for legal teams, leveraging process improvement, legal project management, enterprise data, and practice-related technologies (e.g., document automation, client portals, artificial intelligence and machine learning tools). Finally, the Legal Support team oversees the firm’s legal administrative assistants (LAAs), paralegals, e-filers, practice assistants, regional office staff, litigation support group, and docketing staff.
Under Norah’s leadership, Fredrikson operationalized its annual business planning process for all the firm’s practice groups. Her team created Deal Manager – a custom SharePoint solution that helps the firm’s transactional lawyers manage their deals, improve efficiency, and collect data to forecast workflow and support data-driven pricing. Norah led a restructuring of the LAA function at the firm, which involved building teamed support, adding professional management staff and non-traditional positions such as litigation e-filer and practice assistants. Her team centralized Fredrikson’s litigation docketing function and implemented rules-based docketing software to improve accuracy and reduce risk. Her team builds client portals, dashboards, project plans and workflows to assist legal teams and clients with managing projects, achieving greater transparency, and working in an organized and efficient manner.
Prior to serving as the firm's Chief Legal Operations Officer, Norah practiced for more than ten years as an employment law attorney in its Employment & Labor Group, including as a shareholder and chair of the group. Shortly before becoming chair, she led a strategic planning effort in the group and helmed several teams focused on legal project management, process improvement, knowledge management and alternative fee arrangements. This experience allowed her to explore her passion for innovation in the legal industry – a project to which she is now dedicated full-time and on behalf of the entire firm.
Services
Credentials
Education
- University of Wisconsin Law School, J.D., cum laude
- University of Wisconsin, B.A.