Legal Chief of Staff

SCS Engineers is looking for someone to serve as Chief of Staff to the General Counsel, driving the Legal Department's strategic priorities, operations, and cross-functional alignment while ensuring effective resource allocation, budgeting, and execution of key initiatives. You will provide leadership across corporate governance, intellectual property, compliance, and risk management, while acting as a central liaison to senior leadership, the Board, and internal stakeholders. You will oversee contract lifecycle management and legal technology modernization, enhancing processes, systems, and data-driven decision-making to improve efficiency and mitigate risk across the organization. This position will be based in our Long Beach Headquarters with a minimum of 3 days/week in the office required.

Legal Operations Management:

Develop, revise, and oversee the Legal Group's policies and procedures; monitor legislative changes and changes to business operations and coordinate updates to company policies and procedures.
• Manage department budget and vendors, including external counsel billing arrangements.
• Liaise with General Counsel to ensure the legal team is resourced correctly (including assisting with workload distribution, employee management, hiring, compensation and performance evaluations) to achieve the department's goals.
• Ensure strategic projects and key initiatives are moving forward in a timely manner, keeping the General Counsel continuously apprised of the various workstream status.
• Serve as primary department liaison for collaboration with the Company's Accounting, Human Resources, and Information Technology departments to ensure alignment with corporate directives.
• Track and ensure compliance with relevant continuing legal education requirements for Company's attorneys.
• Assist General Counsel with preparing and/or presenting materials related to meetings with the legal group, senior executives, other internal departments, or the Board.
• Assist with legal engagement letters, invoice tracking, and invoice approval process.
• Develop database for, and filing system for, the company's legal matters.
• Manage relationships with registered agents and various external counsel.
• Provide litigation support, including communications regarding the preservation of records and the collection of evidence in response to discovery requests and regulatory inquiries.

Corporate Governance:

• Support corporate governance activities, including board and committee materials
• Oversee corporate governance and act as company coordinator for the Company's subsidiaries. Maintain minute books and records; draft corporate resolutions and consents; prepare formation/merger/dissolution filings associated with corporate subsidiaries
• Create and maintain legal entity organizational charts.
• Monitor government compliance filings including annual informational filings, business qualifications and tax filings.

Intellectual Property:

• Coordinate and oversee the IP docket.
• Coordinate with external counsel to maintain the company's copyright and trademark portfolio.
• Oversee and develop the Company's strategies for protecting its valuable IP.

Compliance & Risk Management:

• Support the company's insurance & enterprise risk management program.
• Coordinate and assist with project and enterprise risk management initiatives and meetings;
• Secure and manage insurance policies, evaluating deductibles, premiums, and coverage limits;
• Serving as the primary liaison between internal departments and insurance carriers to resolve major corporate claims;
• Ensuring corporate policies align with state regulations and internal risk-management guidelines;
• Coordinate certificates of insurance; and
• Assist in overseeing the Company's contractor and professional licensing process and tracking, including ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements.

Contract review and contract management process:

• Assist in revising and updating template-based agreements (NDAs, MSAs, etc.) based on internal protocols.
• Develop the Company's Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) system from intake to execution, ensure proper approvals, execution, maintain digital contract repositories, and track contractual obligations/critical milestones.
• Develop, implement, and oversee the document execution process and oversee data base to house all company contracts so they can be scanned by an AI tool.
• Point of contact with IT for the development of AI programs for use by the Legal Department.

• Bachelor's degree required. Degree in Business Administration or an MBA is preferred.
• Minimum of fifteen (15) years of experience in a law firm or in-house counsel environment required.
• Paralegal Certificate or Law Degree required.
• Knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite and Copilot.