About Daniel Michalek

Successfully implemented and managed CLM systems, reducing contract turnaround

times by up to 40% and improving cross-departmental collaboration in high-growth, fast-paced environments.

Spearheaded initiatives to reduce legal spend by developing creative workflows,

negotiating vendor contracts, and introducing automated processes, resulting in significant cost savings without compromising

operational quality.

Designed and executed scalable legal intake workflows and operational processes that resolved departmental friction, ensured regulatory compliance, and supported seamless collaboration

across multiple business units.

Played a pivotal role in driving end-to-end digital transformation initiatives, including

onboarding new technology platforms, streamlining corporate and medical registrations, and ensuring alignment with corporate growth strategies.

Budgeting, Forecasting & Accruals

Contract Lifecycle Management

Financial Analysis & Reporting

Legal Billing & Ticketing Process Operations

Legal Department Management

Legal Document Management

Legal Operations Management

Legal Technology

Offshore Vendor Management

Organizational Restructuring

Outside Counsel Management

Policy Development

Process Development, Improvement & Automation

Program & Project Management

Strategic & Technical Leadership

Strategic Business Planning

Training, Mentoring & Coaching

Ariba

Carta

Concur

ContractWorks

DocuSign CLM

FoundationIP

Ironclad

Jira

Office 365

Oracle

SharePoint

Streamline AI

Teams

TyMetrix

Zendesk

San Jose, CA | Nov. 2024 – Current

Took an intentional pause from a 20-year fulfilling career to take a self-designed sabbatical to rejuvenate myself and discover opportunities to use my skill set in new ways.

Shockwave Medical, Inc. | Santa Clara, CA | Sept. 2023 – Current

Shockwave was acquired by Johnson & Johnson on May 31, 2024. Read more here.

First legal operations team member who is leading strategic planning, implementation, and day-to-day management of contract management, technology implementation, and budgeting and forecasting for a publicly traded medical device company.

• Implemented process improvements to streamline and standardize CLM usage, enabled decentralized contract management, introduced self-service templates, and reduced contract review wait times by 40%.
• Spearheaded a redesign of the contract data reconciliation process, relied on CLM’s AI capabilities to capture basic contract data, which reduced contract review time by 80% and improved accuracy by 98%.
• Revamped the quarterly reporting process by leveraging AI and rigorous data review protocols, enhancing reporting accuracy by 95% and reducing reporting cycle time by 75%.
• Standardized and deployed new contract templates, provided training, and established self-service resources, leading to a 75% increase in contract management efficiency and a 20% reduction in errors.
• Oversaw outside counsel and legal vendor selection and onboarding process, streamlined department PO and invoice approval process by implementing standardized protocols, reducing invoice processing times by over 60%.
• Managed a team of 3 contract managers and 1 legal operations professional who supported the successful roll out of the technology road map, contract review process improvements, and drove 100% accuracy and cycle time each quarter.

Branch Metrics, Inc. | Palo Alto, CA | Aug. 2021 – Sept. 2023

Led strategic planning, implementation, and day-to-day management of legal operations including contract management, technology implementation, and legal/data request processing for a late stage deep linking and analytics platform start-up.

• Implemented a legal ticketing solution (including integrations with Ironclad, Salesforce, and Slack) that drove time and cost efficiencies by automating responses/triaging of customer-related inquiries and eliminating the need for manual deal tracking.
• Spearheaded clickwrap mutual NDA that was deployed to all sales reps; created dedicated workflows for outbound contracts to streamline contract execution workflows.
• Designed and deployed data inventory and mapping platform with Senior Privacy Counsel, VP of Legal and Engineering Teams that drove automation around existing business processes to ensure the highest level of accuracy in the company’s data map.
• Managed the legal budget and set budget-related priorities in connection with VP of Legal and Finance Team.
• Delivered a live monthly onboarding session for new hires to learn about what legal does, how to initiate a request for a new vendor, how to submit an invention disclosure, how to request signature on incoming contracts, and more, to facilitate a positive working relationship between legal and each new cohort of employees.
• Oversaw privacy operations for inbound data privacy requests, coordinating internal stakeholders and data custodians to respond timely to data subject requests.
• Directed the review of new vendor requests, including approval from Finance, IT, Security; finalized contract terms and oversaw the signature process on each vendor contract.
• Planned and executed quarterly team offsite meetings, including the design of content and speakers and team building activities to foster a greater sense of team alignment, social gathering, and to align as a team on goals, tasks and priorities.
• Owned international corporate subsidiary management including partnering with Finance Team and multiple external vendors to ensure quarterly and annual compliance across multiple international subsidiaries.
• Hired and managed a legal operations specialist, to help foster cross-functional collaboration between the sales, legal, and billing teams to drive greater operational efficiencies. Supported onboarding efforts of additional senior level counsel roles for the department.

Patreon, Inc. | Palo Alto, CA | Feb. 2021 – Jul. 2021

Directed contract management, legal billing, equity administration, legal requests, budgeting and forecasting, metrics analysis, and technology portfolio/roadmap development for a late-stage global provider of subscription-based platforms start-up company.

• Streamlined contract lifecycle management systems/processes by creating standardized templates, assigning inbound requests to appropriate team members, establishing contract milestone alerts, and integrating new contract management solutions.
• Managed legal billing activities in collaboration with the Finance and Accounts Payable teams, including monthly collection of accrual data from outside counsel, invoice tracking, and analysis of all accrual and financial data to ensure accuracy.
• Oversaw equity management processes, including processing share transfers and secondary sales, tracking option grants, delivering grants to employees, and providing the Board of Directors with relevant information for approving earmarked grants.
• Monitored and analyzed key operational and substantive metrics to provide critical insights/recommendations that facilitated strategic growth initiatives within the legal team, including the hiring of 10 new staff members.

Veritas Technologies LLC | Santa Clara, CA | Jan. 2019 – Feb. 2021

Played a critical legal operations leadership role spanning e-billing, budgeting, and forecasting, organizational restructuring, policy/process development, and workflow management/optimization for a $500M global software company.

• Directed a cross-functional team in creating and implementing a new organizational structure to build better alignment between the legal organization and strategic corporate goals while enhancing global collaboration.
• Partnered cross-functionally with stakeholders across Procurement, IT, Finance, and HR to analyze the current state, identify operational gaps, and drive appropriate organizational restructuring and workflow/policy/process redesign initiatives.
• Enforced outside counsel’s compliance with billing guidelines and financial controls, in addition to creating educational resources and best practices to strengthen operational integrity and compliance for both the legal team and outside counsel.
• Drove a comprehensive redesign of the invoice receipt and review process to enhance coordination between Legal, Accounts Payable, and Finance teams and outside counsel.
• Collaborated with the Finance team on budgeting, forecasting, and accruals, including creating new budget planning and forecasting models that established alternative, cost-effective fee arrangements with employment and litigation firms.

Agilent Technologies, Inc. | Santa Clara, CA | Apr. 2016 – Jan. 2019

Spearheaded IP operations (including process improvements, technology implementations, team restructuring, and outside counsel management) for a $6B global provider of equipment and services for the life sciences and diagnostics markets.

• Hired, trained, and mentored a team of three paralegals and a third-party offshore docketing team, with full responsibility for all staff development and annual performance reviews.
• Delivered strategic guidance and thought leadership for identifying and selecting new technology solutions to optimize operational performance as the Chair of the General Counsel’s Technology and Artificial Intelligence Committee.
• Executed process improvements to align the IP Operations team with the global Legal department’s strategic goals and budget while collaborating with the VP of Global IP and the Director of Legal Operations to develop budgets and forecasts.
• Automated manual processes to deliver greater operational efficiencies, including launching a self-service inventor award model that helped inventors select their desired patent award and have it automatically shipped to them.
• Owned, planned, and executed outside counsel onboarding sessions for more than 20 new outside counsel.

Seagate Technology | Cupertino, CA |Jul. 2015 – Jan. 2016

Provided operational and legal support for outside counsel management, onboarding of a third-party docketing vendor, integration of the non-US patent counsel to the FoundationIP system, and the internal audit of the patent annuity vendor.

Apollo Education Group | San Jose, CA | Jul. 2012 – Jun. 2015

Developed IP processes for a portfolio of 100+ assets; filed copyright applications, investigated copyright infringement claims.

Tessera Technologies| San Jose, CA | Aug. 2010 – Jul. 2012

Served in a key legal support role, with responsibility for managing all aspects of patent strategy for a portfolio of 4K+ assets.

University of Phoenix, San Jose, CA

 DeAnza College, Cupertino, CA