Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs

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Children's Home Society of Florida

Since opening our doors in 1902, CHS became a part of Florida's history.

CHS has been committed to growing and evolving to provide the right services and solutions to address the needs of children and families throughout the changing times. Every day, our team works with parents and kids to empower them and encourage them. With innovative technology solutions and a dedicated, experienced team throughout the state, we’re changing the face of foster care and positively impacting children and families’ lives for generations to come.

Join our team to continue to do good and create history serving Florida's children and families!

At Children's Home Society of Florida, we believe every child deserves the chance to dream big no matter their Zip code. That's why we're building strong foundations from cradle to career. By aligning resources and expanding access to opportunity. We're creating environments where children and families can truly thrive and build brighter futures.

WHY JOIN CHS?

As the Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs, you'll have the rare opportunity to lead enterprise wide contract strategy and legal management for an organization with significant operational scale. This executive role is ideal for an attorney who enjoys complex negotiations, high-volume contracting, and executive collaboration - and who wants their work to directly support meaningful community impact. This position is hybrid-remote and can be located anywhere in Florida. We offer a competitive salary and benefits package, including health and other insurances, 403(b) retirement plan, and very generous paid time off.

Primary Job Functions

1. Provide strategic guidance and tactical direction necessary to safeguard CHS assets and mitigate organizational risk to ensure CHS remains best in class in terms of organizational impact, operational excellence and positive client outcomes.

Legal Services (40%)

• Draft, review, and negotiate a wide range of legal agreements, including vendor contracts, funder agreements, grants, MOUs, leases, and partnership agreements.
• Provide legal advice to CHS leadership and staff on day-to-day operational, programmatic, and internal support matters.
• Assist in developing preventive legal strategies and organizational policy to minimize litigation, third party disputes or other challenges.
• Assist in the management and tracking of all legal expenditures of CHS’s outside counsels as directed by the CLO.
• Interpret statutes, regulations and case law pertaining to CHS business and provide counsel to team members and executive leadership;.
• Review and coordinate responses to public records requests and subpoenas; handle adoption matters and requests for records.
• Support document preservation, discovery, and legal holds as needed for potential and active legal claims, actions or suits.
• Attend court appearances, mediation, arbitrations and settlement conferences as necessary or assigned by CLO.
• Act as legal advisor and counsel for the operations function for CHS. Respond to questions from CHS team members regarding program operations and work with team members to resolve issues.
• Handle legal matters and projects assigned by the CLO.
• Assume acting head of legal role when CLO is temporarily unavailable or as directed by CLO.

Risk Management & Compliance (30%)

• Ensure CHS is in compliance with nonprofit, charitable, tax-exempt, organizational and applicable federal and state laws and regulations.
• Assist with development, implementation, and monitoring of CHS’ internal policies and practices
• Identify areas of risk to the organization and recommend strategies or actions to mitigate those risks.
• Assist with conflict-of-interest, ethics, and document retention policies.
• Support responses to audits, investigations, and regulatory inquiries.
• Assist in the development, implementation and continuous improvement of CHS’s enterprise risk management program.
• Educate the organization on risk and compliance best practices. Provide periodic training as needed.
• Assist with insurance, liability claims and litigation; manage any investigations as necessary or assigned by the Chief Legal Officer.
• Participate in the Risk and Audit Committee, as well as the Policy and Practice Committee.

Contract Management & Other Administration (30%)

• Maintain, with the assistance of the Director of Contracts, all contracts and agreements as well as related documents and files of CHS.
• Maintain contract standards, templates, and approval processes.
• Conduct and provide assessments/reports for executed contracts and agreements to determine compliance, viability and performance.
• Manage and improve the contracting and contract management workflows between department functions, as well as within CHS.
• Participate in negotiations, renegotiations and resolution of contract disputes as needed by the organization.
• Provide oversight of the Contract Management function and the Contract Life Cycle Management system for CHS.

Job Qualifications

Education, Licenses & Certifications:

Required - Juris Doctorate degree from an accredited law school, required. Active member in good standing with the Florida Bar Association and licensed to practice in the state of Florida, required.

Experience:

Required – Substantial (5+ years) of progressive legal experience working as in-house or corporate general counsel required, preferably in the health or human service field and/or nonprofit sector. Extensive experience in the review, drafting and negotiating a variety of contracts and agreements. Experience in management or oversight of a legal function or area including but not limited to oversight of external legal counsel and supervising senior level internal direct reports. Preferred – Five or more years of experience in the specific handling of a variety of contracts and agreements (governmental, nonprofit, technology and business). Knowledge of general business law, legal compliance and risk management. Leasing experience is not required but highly desired. Experience with litigation, claims, subpoenas and production of records is desirable. Experience with working with legal software and/or contract life cycle management solutions.

Competencies

• Accountability – Take action to achieve desired outcomes and deliver results against stated goals; ensuring CHS strategy is responsive to client and community needs, , stewards CHS resources appropriately and adds value by creating competitive advantage for the organization.
• Business Acumen - Possess a high-level of broad business skills, including those related to compliance, finance, human resource, and public relations.
• Change Leadership. Have courage to take risks on people and ideas, driving new approaches to improve results by transforming culture, systems or services and helping others overcome resistance to change so that CHS objectives are achieved.
• Coalition Building – Catalyze commitment across all CHS partners (including funders, providers, local, state and federal entities, etc.) to transform life trajectories and community outcomes.
• Communication. Presents ideas effectively and persuasively (orally and in writing) to individuals and groups in formal and informal settings.
• Compliance & Risk Management. Understands the applicable regulations and laws that impact the business, developing and implementing effective policies and procedures for identifying, auditing and managing compliance and minimizing risk.
• Curiosity – Exhibit a willingness to explore/reframe problems as opportunities, using good judgement to solve practical problems, while engaging in proactive and reflective decision-making.
• Legal Acumen. Possesses deep understanding of legal precedents, principles, practices and issues relative to civil litigation, corporate law, nonprofit law, contract and business law, comprehending complex legal issues and developing legal strategies to drive appropriate outcomes.
• Personal Leadership - Exhibit a professional presence, demonstrating self awareness, caring, compassion and empathy, as well as strong interpersonal and communication skills, demonstrating unwavering Respect, Integrity and Dedication to the CHS Mission.
• Relationship Building & Inclusion – Engage actively with others to forge positive, advantageous, transformational partnerships with people of different backgrounds, abilities, and perceptions, increasing diversity and promoting a sense of belonging across cultural and other groups.
• Strategic Foresight. Be proactive in identifying key issues and relationships relevant to achieving a long-range goal or vision.
• Team & Organization Building. Use a flexible interpersonal style to systematically build, motivate and guide individual, team and organizational capability, instilling a culture focused on talent development and engagement.
• Vision & Purpose. Confront the complex realities of Florida’s communities and create breakthrough results using data-driven approaches.

Together, good can be done.

All applicants are subject to background screening through the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA). For more information, visit https://info.flclearinghouse.com