Chief Legal Officer

What You Will Do 

Here is a summary of what is generally expected of this role.

Key Responsibilities

Organizational Leadership

• Responsible for all the legal affairs of the corporation, including directing the activities of outside counsel as appropriate to ensure constructive, efficient, and cost-effective outcomes. 

• Anticipate and identify legal issues of concern to senior management and develop strategies and solutions, often in situations of great financial, political, and/or public relations risk or significance and with limited time for assessing alternatives.

• Report to the Board of Trustees Chair as needed with the ability to maintain independence and confidentiality with high regard for ethics.

Chief Legal Counsel

• Manage staff in the Office of General Counsel (OGC) and Export Compliance, including decisions relating to hiring, firing, promoting, conducting annual performance reviews, staff development, and training, and determining future departmental staffing requirements. 

• Make critical decisions regarding the level of risk the corporation can assume related to legal, contractual, insurance, and export issues that have potential impacts on the organization of the magnitude of tens of millions of dollars or more.

• Determine when litigation, contractual/legal liabilities, and risks are acceptable to UCAR on multi-million dollar domestic and international research programs. 

Who We'd Love To Join Our Team

Successful candidates will ensure their application materials speak to the following criteria:

Education & Experience

• J.D. Degree, a bachelor’s degree in business, science, or technical field;

• 15 years of experience in corporate, business, IP, and employment law;

  • Including 5 years in a supervisory or senior management attorney position;

• Or an equivalent combination of education and experience. 

• An ideal candidate will have experience in an academic and/or research environment and with government contracting, corporate governance, litigation, intellectual property, technology transfer, employment, ethics, export, and research security compliance in a university, nonprofit, or high technology research environment.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Excellent skill in building and leading teams with the ability to influence others to perform in the corporation’s best interest. 

• Ability to work with the President, BOT, and Senior Management in a manner that creates trust.

• Advanced knowledge of government contracts, government ethics, regulations, corporate contracts, and contract law, and a demonstrated ability to apply such knowledge to solve a broad range of legal and contractual issues.

• Ability to provide expert legal advice on a wide variety of general business issues and balance business requirements in a scientific/academic environment.

• Advanced knowledge of U.S. and foreign patent, trademark, and copyright laws and government licensing and disclosure requirements. 

• Advanced knowledge of export laws and regulations

• Advances knowledge of corporate governance, Robert's Rules of Order, Colorado nonprofit law, tax-exempt IRS regulations

• Ability to analyze non-technical aspects of field projects in order to evaluate risk (domestic and foreign)

• Demonstrated ability to manage a staff of professionals in a team environment.

• Skill in the evaluation and planning for risk and loss prevention and in formulating effective plans to mitigate risk.

• Knowledge of insurance practices and principles in a corporate setting and ability to evaluate the capabilities of insurance consultants.

• Advanced skills in oral and written communications and in dealing effectively with a wide range of people at the upper levels of an organization. 

• Ability to make oral presentations on complex business issues and interact successfully with a wide range of scientific and administrative staff, management personnel, executives, and board members.

• Demonstrated ability to work independently and exercise sound business judgment, work under tight time schedules and upper management job pressures, handle confidential and sensitive information with discretions, and understand policy-level issues with sensitivity to organizational culture and external political nuances.

• Skill in the use of business software, with the ability to self-prepare legal and other business documents.

• Highest level of ethics and ability to handle confidential and sensitive legal and business information with discretion.

Benefits Overview 

UCAR affirms its commitment to employees through competitive benefits. In addition to medical, dental, vision, retirement, and life insurance,  UCAR offers a variety of programs focused on work-life balance and professional, and personal development. These include:

• Tuition Assistance, time off allowance to attend classes, and other professional development opportunities

• UCAR contributes 10% of your eligible pay into your retirement account; 100% fully vested on day one

• Starting minimum accrual of 20 days of personal time off each year (prorated for less than full-time positions)

• 10 paid holidays

• 10 days of sick leave each year

• 12 weeks of paid parental leave

• Short-term medical leave paid at 100% of your regular salary

• EcoPass for local Colorado residents to use the Denver and Boulder-area transit system at no cost