Chief Legal Officr

Role Overview

The General Counsel will serve as a strategic partner to senior leadership and the primary legal architect for our specialty pharmaceutical company focused on women’s health. This role is designed for a mission-driven legal expert who can balance high-level advocacy with rigorous operational efficiency. You will be responsible for bringing some legal functions in-house, managing external counsel, and balancing compliance with operational realities.

The ideal candidate has experience as corporate counsel at a US-regulated pharmaceutical company and in litigation, as well as a deep-seated commitment to women’s health. You thrive in a cross-functional environment where legal strategy intersects with social impact and want a role as part of a team rather than seeing company as a “client.” You relish work that is complex, creative, and hugely impactful on healthcare.

Key Responsibilities

1. Strategic Legal Leadership & Cost Management

• Experience and expertise: Broad and deep hands-on experience and expertise across pharma legal silos, including corporate, contracting, regulatory (FDA and state), litigation, IP and licensing, related to the development, manufacture, regulation, sale, distribution, and promotion of drugs, medical devices, and diagnostics. Deep understanding or passion to learn practical issues affecting legal advice[KT1] .
• Strong practical, fact-driven, and business-centric mindset: Your approach to legal work is focused on business success and practical, not a cookie cutter template.  You understand and manage risk in the context of business execution.
• Effective use of outside counsel: You will carry critical daily legal work in house and carefully use and manage outside counsel to balance expertise, execution, and costs. Manage external legal partnerships, ensuring strong alignment, high-value delivery, and budget adherence.
• Collegial team and executive advisory: Serve as a core member of the leadership team, providing counsel on corporate governance, risk translation, and strategic growth.  Able to give effective advice, guidance, mentoring, and training to team members.

2. Cross-Functional Partnership

• Litigation and protecting access to care: Lead company efforts with outside counsel and advocates on litigation and internal and external operational practices with the goal of expanding access to women’s health care. Advise on the company’s overall risk posture against complex challenges.
• Operations: Oversee company-wide contracts, corporate/board, financing, IP filings, and other activities to ensure legal documents are effective, up to date and organized. Assess, support, and manage efficient resolution of disputes and oversee arbitration and litigation as they arise. Review insurance policies and risk management practices, liaising with the Board of Directors.
• Compliance: Drive cross-functional proactive and efficient compliance architecture and processes that include codes of conduct, training, and conflict of interest management. Work with the relevant teams to implement.
• Human Resources: Partner with HR director and any supporting staff[KT2]  to oversee employment law matters, ensuring an equitable, compliant, and supportive workplace.
• Finance: In concert with external corporate counsel, develop, negotiate, and review financing documents, and equity or other equity-like compensation programs. Advise the Board of Directors on fiduciary duties. 
• Information Technology: Collaborate with IT to ensure adequate data security protocols.
• Regulatory & Quality: Work closely with Regulatory and Quality leadership to navigate complex compliance landscapes and maintain industry-leading standards.
• Business Development: Support business development initiatives, including partnering, licensing, and acquisition agreements, and help guide and execute IP strategy and management.
• Public Relations: Partner with PR to ensure effective legal input into public- and investor-facing information.

3. Advocacy & Ethical Stewardship

• Mission alignment: Ensure all legal strategies and execution align with the organization’s commitment to its mission.
• Policy development: Partner with Policy team to monitor new legislative developments that impact the business. Draft and implement internal policies that reflect best practices in compliance, transparency, ethics, and social responsibility.

Qualifications & Skills

Requirements

• Education: Juris Doctor (JD) degree from an accredited law school.
• Licensure: Active member in good standing of at least one State Bar.
• Experience: At least 10 years of legal practice with a background in corporate and commercial law, with broader experience being favorable. At least 5 years substantive experience as in-house general counsel in small to medium pharmaceutical company or comparable experience. Experience within women’s health advocacy is preferred but not prerequisite.
• Operational excellence: Proven track record of managing budgets and optimizing legal operations to contain outside counsel expenses.
• Excellent communication skills:  Must be able to understand team members’ complex issues and effectively translate them into intelligible and actionable insight and practical decision-making.

Core Competencies

• Collaborative business mindset: Ability to speak the language of different departments (from BD to IT), find holistic solutions, and see issues and needs as belonging to your company and colleagues.
• Ethical rigor: A principled approach to law that prioritizes practicality, ethics, transparency, lawful conduct, and achieving the company’s broader mission.
• Agility: Comfort navigating the ambiguity of a growing organization within a shifting and complex policy and legal landscape. Familiarity with this highly-regulated industry and challenging sector. Maintaining a focus on building scalable legal processes.