Legal Counsel

Ideal candidate's home office is located within a 2 hour commute to one of our plants in Greencastle PA, Monroe, NH, Salem, NH, or Gainesville, GA. However, the role is remote with 20% travel as needed. Ideal candidate must be located in the East Coast Time Zone.

Pete and Gerry’s Organics, LLC, is seeking to add a dynamic and experienced attorney to join our Team. Reporting to the Chief Human Resources Officer and General Counsel, you will be a champion and role model for the Company’s mission, values, and culture, with a “roll up your sleeves” approach that is efficient, straightforward, proactive, problem-solving, and results-oriented.

You will possess practical experience and a relational style that encourages colleagues to seek you out for trusted advice and counsel. You will combine legal acumen with business experience in consumer products and transactions to provide sound legal advice and practical solutions on a wide range of commercial and contractual matters affecting Pete and Gerry’s Organics’ business.

The Legal Counsel will play a vital role as a legal partner supporting PGO’s business activities:

• Work closely with the General Counsel to provide support in a broad range of matters and initiatives while proactively partnering with business colleagues to protect the Company’s interests. Partner closely with internal stakeholders, including operations, marketing, information technology, farm, and sales teams, along with the General Counsel, to support commercial objectives while providing legal advice to regarding risk management.
• Draft, review, and revise a variety of legal documents, including contracts, agreements, correspondence, policies, procedures and training; prepare letters, presentations, memos, reports, legal budgets, and other materials for diverse internal and external audiences.
• Support organization-wide or department specific legal projects and initiatives as necessary, including policies, procedures and training.
• Provide strategic and tactical leadership on the management, review, and approval of consumer and retail-facing materials; provide counsel on regulatory issues, including food, intellectual property, advertising, privacy, data and other laws.
• Support and participate in the Company’s ESG initiatives.
• Maintain and organize legal files, documents, and databases, ensuring accuracy and appropriate accessibility and controls; manage legal holds and discovery requests as necessary; assist with management of contract lifecycle from initiation to execution, including tracking deadlines, renewals, and amendments. Lead contract management system assessment and implementation.
• Proactively identify emerging legal and regulatory risks for the business team and partner effectively to help manage them.
• Support continuous improvement of standard form agreements, policies, and legal operations, including identification of systems to enable improved recordkeeping and user experience.

Required Skills And Abilities

• Ability to make professional legal and business presentations in writing, through emails, memos, presentations or reports, or orally, including complex legal, business, and technical matters to diverse audiences with varying degrees of technical skills, management, and operational experience
• Ability to direct and partner with outside counsel cost-effectively, clearly define results to be achieved, make decisions, give direction, and measure individual/team performance and results
• Ability to maintain confidentiality and handle sensitive information with discretion.
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to work collaboratively in a team-oriented environment.
• Flexibility and adaptability to thrive in a fast-paced, evolving, and growing business environment
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to communicate effectively with internal stakeholders and external parties.
• Motived, self-starter capable of working both independently with minimal supervision and as part of a team
• Highly organized with strong attention to detail and the ability to manage multiple tasks, projects and deadlines simultaneously.
• Strong financial management skills; ability to create, analyze and maintain budgets and related reports
• Desire to continue professional development.
• Strong understanding of legal concepts and terminology, with the ability to apply them in practical situations.
• Proficiency in conducting legal research.

Minimum Qualifications

• Juris Doctorate from an accredited US law school
• 7+ years of legal practice experience, with a combination of law firm and in-house legal experience, or combination of law firm and prior business experience, including experience working with growing businesses, ideally with private equity investment
• Member in good standing of the NH, PA or GA bars or member in good standing of another State bar with the ability to become a member or qualify as in-house counsel in NH, PA or GA within 6 months of beginning employment
• Experience providing legal support to operations, sales, information technology, and marketing teams, preferably in a consumer products organization
• Experience partnering with business teams to understand their requirements and then drafting, negotiating, and revising terms
• Experience with identifying privacy, consumer, regulatory and transactional issues and working with multiple stakeholders to assess risks and then navigating through them
• Computer literacy including proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite; knowledge of contract database management, with vendor selection and implementation experience a plus