Senior Legal Counsel (Employment)

Job Description:

Job Title: Senior Legal Counsel (Employment)
Department: Office of Legal Affairs

About the Opportunity

At The Community Solution Education System, the Office of Legal Affairs serves as a trusted advisor to leadership across The Community Solution, providing strategic legal counsel on a broad range of matters affecting our System Office and partner institutions. Our attorneys work collaboratively with leaders across the organization to navigate complex legal and regulatory issues, support sound decision-making, and help advance our mission.

We're seeking an experienced Senior Legal Counsel with expertise in labor and employment law and experience in higher education to join our Office of Legal Affairs. Reporting to the Managing Counsel & Associate Vice President for Legal Affairs, this attorney will work alongside a collaborative team of in-house counsel, with primary responsibility for advising on employment and labor matters. In this role, you'll partner closely with Human Resources, institutional leaders, and other stakeholders to provide practical, strategic legal guidance across a broad spectrum of employment, labor, student-related, and other in-house legal matters, including regulatory compliance, internal investigations, dispute resolution, policy development, and risk management. This position offers the opportunity to influence organizational decision-making, help shape policies and practices, and support a mission-driven higher education system.

This role is part of a fully remote, workforce, requires flexibility in working across time zones, involves a fast-paced environment with changing priorities and short deadlines, and may occasionally require work outside of standard business hours to meet business needs.

What You'll Focus On

• Providing practical legal counsel and risk assessment on day-to-day operational, administrative, and strategic matters supporting higher education system and institutional operations.
• Serving as lead counsel on employment-related disputes, including pre-litigation and litigation matters involving discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wage and hour, workers’ compensation, and reasonable accommodation claims.
• Conducting and advising on complex workplace and student-related investigations and recommending legally sound, practical resolutions.
• Negotiating settlements, managing insurance claims, and partnering with outside counsel as appropriate to support effective case resolution.
• Advising on compliance with federal and state employment laws and regulations, including FLSA, ADA, FMLA, California employment laws, and matters involving state and federal regulatory agencies.
• Supporting labor relations matters, including collective bargaining and related workforce considerations.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Minimum of 10 years of experience practicing employment law as a litigator or within a higher education environment.
• Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from an ABA-accredited law school.
• Active license to practice law in California.
• Must be licensed to practice law in Illinois or eligible to become licensed upon starting work.
• Experience providing legal counsel and risk assessment on employment, labor, and workplace matters.
• Experience advising organizational leaders on complex employment issues, including workplace investigations, regulatory compliance, and dispute resolution.
• Strong knowledge of federal and state employment laws, including FLSA, ADA, FMLA, and California employment laws.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in higher education, litigation, labor relations, and general corporate and/or regulatory law.
• Combined experience in both law firm and in-house legal environments.
• Experience drafting, reviewing, and implementing policies and procedures within an organization.

Why Join Us

• Comprehensive health and welfare benefits, including medical, dental, and vision coverage, voluntary benefit options, employer-paid life and disability insurance, retirement plan contributions, and an employee assistance program.
• Strong work-life balance with 20 PTO days and 11 paid holidays annually.
• Distributed workforce model with remote work flexibility and a biweekly remote work stipend.
• Tuition reimbursement for eligible external degree programs, along with tuition waivers at participating colleges within the System.
• Opportunity to contribute to a mission-driven higher education system focused on student success, institutional excellence, and advancing equitable access to education.
• Learn more about The Community Solution Education System and our mission, visit our website: https://www.tcsedsystem.edu/.

Compensation & Benefits

This opportunity is budgeted at $175,000–$180,000 base compensation. Additional compensation factors may impact total compensation. To learn more about our competitive benefits and additional rewards, including generous paid time-off, medical and dental insurance coverage, life and disability insurance, retirement plan with employer contribution, multiple flexible spending accounts, tuition reimbursement, click the link below.

https://www.tcsedsystem.edu/careers/

The Community Solution is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Application Process

Please note the screening, recruitment, and selection process is managed by recruiting staff and hiring managers with the aid of artificial intelligence to evaluate candidates against job requirements. The artificial intelligence tool is a resource only and all employment decisions are made by staff members.

When you apply, it is recommended you utilize the option to parse your resume into the application. To ensure your experience is accurately reflected, please review and complete all application fields—even if you auto-fill from your resume.

For the best results, tailor your resume to the job description, highlight key qualifications and skills, and use clear, consistent formatting. This helps our AI tools read and assess your application more effectively. We are committed to regularly monitoring the process for fairness and remove personally identifiable information during evaluation.