Chief General Counsel

The Chief General Counsel (CGC) is the chief legal officer and advisor to the organization, reporting directly to the CEO. This executive position is responsible for providing legal counsel and strategic advice to the CEO, Board of Directors, and senior leadership on legal, regulatory, and business matters. The CGC directs all legal strategies and initiatives to represent the company and its subsidiaries across transactions, litigation, and legal affairs. They oversee and manage the entire legal function, safeguarding the organization's rights and interests while ensuring legal services adhere to compliance and ethical best practices when rendered internally and externally. The CGC drives responsible corporate growth by delivering expert legal leadership, mitigating legal risks, and serving as a trusted advisor on major initiatives, transactions, and issues impacting the enterprise.

What you will do here:

• Acts as lead counsel on major corporate transactions like mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, financings, negotiating and drafting related agreements. Review, negotiate, and draft high-value, complex contracts to protect the Credit Union’s interests. Overseeing litigation matters, regulatory investigations/audits, and managing relationships with outside legal counsel. Monitoring the legal/regulatory landscape and advising executives/board on significant developments impacting the business is expected.
• Develops and implements company-wide strategy for legal. Keeps Senior Management informed of emerging legal issues, statutes, and cases. Anticipates, identifies, communicates, and mitigates potential legal problems within the organization and developing strategies to avoid litigation and appropriately manages issues that can affect the credit union.
• Provides the overall direction, coordination, and evaluation of the entire legal department, including hiring, training, developing, and leading a team of attorneys and legal staff.
• Establishes legal department policies, procedures, budgets, internal controls, and information governance. Serves as a strategic advisor to enable responsible business growth while proactively managing legal/compliance risks. They function as an expert legal counselor and trusted advisor to drive key business objectives and initiatives legally and ethically.
• Stays abreast of all laws, regulations and other information that affect credit union operations. Analyzes the impact of regulations and litigation and communicates issues and risks.
• Perform other job-related duties as assigned.

What you will need:

• Doctoral Degree in a related field, i.e., Juris Doctorate, litigation, financial institution law, employment law, bankruptcy law, business/corporate law, and regulatory law. required.
• 12+ years of experience in corporate law, compliance, governance, and managing an in-house corporate legal team. required.
• 10+ years of experience as a financial service attorney with demonstrated working knowledge of financial institution regulatory affairs. preferred.
• Ability to translate research into business solutions that align with key business solutions required.
• Effective organization and time management skills with ability to work under pressure and adhere to deadlines required.
• Outstanding interpersonal, written, oral, research, and presentation skills and the ability to effectively communicate required.
• Lead and motivate employees through effective leadership, mentoring, communication, and professional development required.
• Demonstrated ability to set strategy and direction while facilitating a forward-thinking organizational change required.
• Excellent judgment and creative problem solving skill including negotiation and conflict management required.
• Member of the Arizona Bar (in good standing) required.
• Admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the State of Arizona, and all other Arizona State Courts required.
• Admitted to practice in the District of Arizona required.
• Eligible to be admitted to practice pro hac vice in the federal and state courts of other jurisdictions required.
• Bank Secrecy Act Compliance Specialist (BSACS) required.

We are proud to be an EEO/AA employer M/F/D/V. We maintain a drug-free workplace and perform pre-employment substance abuse testing.

For additional information about our organization, careers, and benefits visit: http://www.desertfinancial.com/careers.