Deputy General Counsel (Chicago, Durham, New York, San Francisco, or Washington, D.C.)
Arabella Advisors seeks an organized, detail-oriented and highly motivated attorney to work in the General Counsel’s office. The General Counsel’s Office is responsible for providing timely, coordinated, and thoughtful legal advice to internal clients on a wide variety of regulatory, compliance, and risk-management matters, grounded in applicable laws and tailored to Arabella Advisors’ business needs.
The General Counsel’s office also provides legal support to a variety of nonprofit organizations that Arabella Advisors manages, including the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity, and Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. The position provides substantive advice to Arabella staff on legal matters related to state and federal tax exemption, nonprofit governance, contracts, employment, insurance, intellectual property, advocacy, lobbying, and campaign finance. The successful candidate will be able to navigate between the corporate and non-profit environment and provide timely, practical legal information and guidance to a broad array of stakeholders, including employees, funders, advisory committees, board members, grantees, and contractors.
Essential Responsibilities
General Legal (40%)
- Oversee the department’s work processing and reviewing Arabella contracts. Assist and counsel Arabella staff in the process of evaluating, constructing, and negotiating a broad range of service agreements, independent contractor agreements, vendor contracts, and non-disclosure agreements. The deputy general counsel will be directly involved in complex business transactions and in negotiating critical contracts for the firm.
- Provide legal guidance to business development staff and participate in prospective client meetings.
- Respond to intellectual property issues that arise from the company’s activities, working with the General Counsel to provide accurate and timely advice to staff.
- Evaluate enterprise risk; conduct ongoing risk assessment and monitoring; develop and improve risk mitigation tools; and work with the operations department to ensure appropriate insurance coverage for the firm’s activities.
- With the General Counsel, provide senior management with advice on company strategies and their implementation, manage the legal function of the firm, and oversee the work of outside counsel.
- With the General Counsel, manages the firm’s internal compliance function and staff.
- Provide support to the administrative and operation departments, including developing and implementing user-friendly policies and procedures.
- Assist in resolving routine legal issues or questions.
- Perform other duties as assigned.
Nonprofit Legal (50%)
- Oversee the team responsible for ensuring compliance with state registration and reporting obligations for several nonprofits, including charitable solicitation registration, state tax exemption, foreign corporation registration, and registration of commercial co-venture agreements.
- Assist the General Counsel with oversight of the department’s work processing and reviewing the nonprofit organization contracts.
- Serve as a technical resource on nonprofit legal and compliance issues for Arabella staff and employees of the non-profit organizations.
Management (10%)
- Supervise compliance and legal staff, including the staff attorney, with an extensive focus on developing, motivating, and mentoring.
- Identify, recruit, coach and support staff, including developing strategies to retain strong performers.
To Be Successful in This Role, You’ll Need
- License to practice law.
- J.D. and at least 8 years of experience with relevant legal issues.
- Experience working in General Counsel’s office, law firm, or corporate compliance department.
- Excellent written and oral communication skills and a strong customer-focus orientation.
- Ability to work independently, proactively identify and prioritize needs, and to judge when it is appropriate to get assistance from outside counsel.
- Ability to work creatively and analytically on solving complex legal issues.
- Sense of humor and collegial approach to working with a team that connects to all entities served by a single supporting organization.
- Broad knowledge of tax exempt law and practice, especially with respect to 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) Knowledge of lobbying, employment, and intellectual property law is a plus.
- Experience working in a consulting firm, nonprofit or foundation.
Our Core Competencies
- The ability to provide excellent service, including being able to effectively guide teams to achieve service standards and carry out strategy, and identify service offering gaps and recommend and/or drive improvements.
- The ability to manage resources across team to ensure projects and goals are achieved, approve work plan changes and final deliverables, and communicate projects’ progress with critical stakeholders
- The ability to establish and manage effective relationships with diverse stakeholders across the firm, including executive-level colleagues, and to foster a culture of courteous professional interactions
- The ability to effectively communicate critical firm-wide messages, and to lead others in managing challenging conversations and developing complex communication skills
- The ability to model and foster a team-wide culture of inclusion, collaboration, and knowledge sharing; to demonstrate and model appreciation for significant team contributions; and to mediate challenging interpersonal conflicts
- The ability to regularly engage in leadership development activities, and lead firm-wide initiatives that improve firm-wide learning
- The ability to foster a team culture that encourages creative problem solving, and to ensure teams have resources and training to overcome complex challenges
- The ability to take initiative for creating an inclusive environment and model and implement equitable policies, practices, systems, or strategies
Working with Us
While this position must be based in Chicago, Durham, New York, San Francisco, or Washington, D.C., please note that all Arabella Advisors’ offices have reopened, and we work in a hybrid environment.
We reopened our offices in Summer of 2022 and work with a hybrid workplace strategy to ensure continued flexibility for our staff, while deepening our strong culture rooted in collaboration and in-person interactions between colleagues. We expect that after their initial onboarding, all Arabellans will have the choice of two hybrid schedules. Our hybrid schedule options include Flex, with 1-2 days per week in the office, or Office-based, with 3+ days per week in the office (or more if preferred) and the remaining days working at home/remotely. We will make reasonable accommodations under the guidelines of the Americans With Disabilities Act.
We are committed to having a passion-driven, inclusive, transparent, collaborative, healthy, and fun culture. We invite you to visit our careers
page to learn more.
About Arabella Advisors
Arabella Advisors helps foundations, philanthropists and investors who are serious about impact achieve the greatest good with their resources. We work on issues ranging from the social and economic advancement of women and girls, and conservation of our climate and planet, to reducing poverty and inequity in the United States and around the world. Our staff members are mission-driven and action- oriented, and have a unique combination of experience in philanthropy, business, nonprofits, government, finance, law, and other fields. We combine creative, strategic thinking with knowledge and networks developed through decades of hands-on experience. The fastest-growing philanthropic advisory firm in the nation, Arabella is also a certified B Corporation.
Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
Advancing DEI within our firm and in our work with partners is critical to our mission. To be effective partners to philanthropists, nonprofits, and communities impacted by philanthropic dollars, we need to have a highly diverse staff, a workplace where individuals are encouraged to retain their uniqueness and can feel a sense of belonging, and a nuanced understanding of the racial, ethnic, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability status, and other disparities that undergird the issues we engage in and the interactions we have with one another. For us, equity means that our staff members, our clients, and the people they serve can experience the same level of success, no matter their starting place. We expect all our employees to share this commitment, and always seek ways to improve how well we live these values. Click
here to learn more about DEI at Arabella and read our official DEI statement.
Total Rewards (compensation and benefits)
This is a full-time position. We offer a competitive and holistic total rewards package that includes salary, bonus, and benefits. Our compensation ranges are based on salary ranges for similar sized organizations in the professional services sector and adjusted for local labor market rates and differentiated by geography.
Durham: $160,000 - $200,000
Chicago: $166,000 - $208,000
DC: $176,000 - $220,000
NY & SF: $191,000 - $240,000
All full-time staff are eligible for our generous benefits package on their first day of employment:
- Health insurance- On average Arabella pays 86% of the medical premium, 80% of the dental premium, and 100% of the vision premium
- Paid time off- 18 days vacation, 10 personal days, 11 company holidays (7 federal and 4 more from a list of inclusive cultural and religious holidays and your birthday), 20 hours volunteer leave, 8 weeks parental leave
- 401(k) retirement plan- We offer a 4% employer match on a dollar-per-dollar basis, and there is no waiting or vesting period; all funds contributed by you and Arabella are yours to keep on day 1
- Reimbursements for your personal cell phone plan and fitness
- Pre-tax withholding for transportation and parking
- Bonus incentive opportunities
- Access to professional development opportunities
Submit a resume and a one-page cover letter online. The cover letter should address why you’re excited to work at Arabella and why you’re qualified for this specific job.
Arabella Advisors is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to racial equity. If we can make the application process easier through accommodation in the recruitment process, please let us know. We encourage you to read (or listen to)
our DEI statement prior to applying. We make a particular effort to recruit people of color and members of marginalized groups to apply for open positions. Once you have applied, we welcome your feedback on how you have experienced our values around DEI in the recruitment process.
We will review applications as they are received and look forward to hearing from you.
