Chief Counsel

Summary 

The role of Chief Counsel is to provide legal advice and counsel to the leadership of the organization to mitigate potential legal risks and to ensure compliance with applicable laws, regulations, policies, procedures and contractual obligations.  This role is accountable for leading the organization's Quality Assurance/Internal Audit, Ethics, Compliance, and Contract Management functions and has managerial responsibility for employees on those teams.  This role is an executive of the organization and serves as the organization's Corporate Secretary, as designated by the Board of Directors.   

Essential Functions 

• Provides advice and counsel on complex legal issues. 

• Negotiates contracts and other agreements on behalf of the organization. 

• Keep leadership informed of new or changing laws that may impact the organization. 

• Leads the Quality Assurance/Internal Audit, Ethics, Compliance and Contract Management teams and is responsible for all aspects of managing the employees on those teams.  

• Provides periodic updates to the Board of Directors on legal, quality assurance, compliance, ethics and contractual matters impacting the organization.  

• Collaborates with leadership to ensure business decisions align with applicable laws, regulations, standards, contractual obligations and the organization's policies and procedures. 

• Performs other duties as assigned.   

Competencies 

Delivery-related  

Analytical Thinking: Identifies critical connections and patterns in information data; soundly analyses verbal and numerical data; recognizes causes and consequences of actions and events that are not readily apparent; anticipates and thinks ahead about next steps.  

Achievement Focus: Demonstrates the ability to challenge existing practices to become more effective; contributes to improve work methods, outcomes and team performance; generates results by acting in a focused way and within the deadlines and finds ways to go around obstacles with minimum guidance; makes efforts to optimize process workflows efficiently.  

Drafting Skills: Writes information coming from multiple sources in a logical and comprehensive, yet concise manner; combines information from various sources in a concise and consistent manner; makes sound use of graphics and tables to effectively present numerical data.  

Flexible Thinking: Anticipates having to adapt work methods to changing technology and environments; considers problems from all new perspectives and can expand on the thinking or solutions proposed by others; adapts to new ideas and initiatives relevant to own area of work; understands and promotes the organization’s business needs and polices for introducing change.   

Managing Resources: Manages the allocation of resources in relation to business needs; manages the work plan, sets timelines and milestones, and involves stakeholders to deliver on time; provides advice on procedures and the use of financial resources.  

Teamwork and Team Leadership: Supports others in taking independent action; resolves issues that occur with minimal direction; invites and builds upon the ideas of others; assumes additional responsibilities to facilitate the achievement of team goals.    

Interpersonal   

Customer Focus:  Follows up with customers during and after the delivery of services to ensure that their needs have been met; keeps customers up to date on the process of the service that are receiving and changes that affect them; ensures service is provided to customers during critical periods; prioritizes customers’ issues and address them accordingly.    

Diplomatic Sensitivity: Listens actively, considers people’s concerns, and adjusts own behavior in a helpful manner; understands the reason behind, or motivation for someone’s actions; is attentive when doing projects, assignments or interacting with people from different countries and backgrounds; expresses negative feelings constructively.  

Influencing: Persuades by using concrete examples to make a point; recalls others’ main points and takes them into account in own communication; reads cues from various listeners to assess when and how to change the planned communication approach to effectively deliver messages.   

Negotiating: Identifies main negotiating points of a given issue and engages in negotiation; listens to differing points of view and promotes mutual understanding.   

Organizational Knowledge: Seeks to understand and raises awareness of the organization’s decision-making bodies and power relationships; shares knowledge about and encourages others to keep up to date with the organization’s rules, structures, networks, systems, and environment; recognizes what is and is not acceptable /possible at certain times given the organizational rules, structures, decision-making bodies, power relationships, Code of Conduct, and values; raises compliance, ethical or other issues to protect the organization’s reputation and obligations.    

Strategic  

Developing Talent: Actively shares knowledge among peers or offers advice to less experienced colleagues; self-assesses against standards for current position to identify learning needs; effectively transfers acquired knowledge and expertise; demonstrates initiative in professional self-development.   

Organizational Alignment: Can present the organization’s priorities as they relate to own area of work; explains and convinces others of the need for adaptation and change of policies, structures, and methods.   

Strategic Networking: Actively nurtures both formal and informal contacts to facilitate the process of work by proactively sharing information, best practices and respective interests and areas of expertise; identifies current or past contacts that can provide work-related information or assistance; fosters two-way trust in dealing with contacts (e.g., maintains confidentiality regarding sensitive information).  

Strategic Thinking: Identifies new information or data to key decision-makers or stakeholders to support their understanding and decisions.    

Supervisory Responsibilities 

This role supervises employees in the Quality Assurance department and the Operations Administrator.   

Work Environment 

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.  

The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate.  

Physical Demands 

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an individual to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.  

While performing the duties of this job, the individual is frequently required to stand, walk, reach with hands and arms, and talk or hear. The individual is occasionally required to sit, use hands to finger, handle, or feel, climb, or balance, stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl and taste or smell. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 50 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and ability to adjust focus.  

Travel Required 

None 

Education and/or Experience 

Must possess a Juris Doctor degree from an accredited university, be licensed to practice law in Georgia (or have the ability to obtain such licensure prior to employment, by being a member in good standing with a state bar association in a jurisdiction that has reciprocity with Georgia and having practiced law in such a jurisdiction for the requisite period of time) and have at least 10 years of experience, preferably in an in-house or non-profit setting.  

Affirmative Action/EEO statement 

InCommunity is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.  

Other Duties 

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.