Senior Counsel, Employment Law

Job Summary

As Senior Counsel, Employment Law, you will play an integral role in helping a highly complex, fast paced organization in a rapidly changing environment adhere to its mission and values by ensuring that we properly maintain compliance with employment laws, assess risk balanced with business goals, offer solutions, hold each other accountable and treat partners with respect and dignity. You will support multiple client groups and retail stakeholders at varying levels on wage and hour matters, workplace accommodations, protected leave, claims of harassment, discrimination and retaliation, manager and sensitive separations, business reorganizations and compliance with federal, state and local labor and employment regulations. You will direct and oversee investigations alleging unlawful employment actions. In addition, you will work with and oversee outside counsel and in-house paralegals to defend lawsuits and agency charges filed against the company.

Job Responsibilities:

– Primarily leverages knowledge of legal specialty in providing counsel as it builds its knowledge of the business context in which it operates.
– Review and prepare legal documents prior to presentation to management for execution to ensure accurate expression of the legal content.
– May receive specific direction from management or more senior law professionals as to the outcomes, process and schedules expected.
– Collaborates with the business units that it serves in order to achieve corporate objectives and mitigate unnecessary business risk.
– Research legal principles and precedents, engage and manage outside counsel, draft legal documents, gather relevant case related information using multiple sources and methods, provide work guidance to other professional, paraprofessional and support staff in developing solutions to problems presented.
– Maintain currency and fluency in the legal and business trends that could impact those business units within Walgreens that it serves.

An Equal Opportunity Employer, including disability/veterans

Walgreens (www.walgreens.com) is included in the Retail Pharmacy USA Division of Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (Nasdaq: WBA), a global leader in retail pharmacy. As America’s most loved pharmacy, health and beauty company, Walgreens purpose is to champion the health and wellbeing of every community in America. Operating more than 9,000 retail locations across America, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, Walgreens is proud to be a neighborhood health destination serving approximately 8 million customers each day. Walgreens pharmacists play a critical role in the U.S. healthcare system by providing a wide range of pharmacy and healthcare services. To best meet the needs of customers and patients, Walgreens offers a true omnichannel experience, with platforms bringing together physical and digital, supported by the latest technology to deliver high-quality products and services in local communities nationwide.

Basic Qualifications:

– Juris Doctorate from an accredited law school and at least 5 years of post-bar attorney legal work experience in a combination of law firm and Support Center settings.
– Required licensure to practice law in at least one state.
– Required Illinois bar membership or active bar membership in good standing in at least one U.S. jurisdiction
– Experience using time management skills such as prioritizing/organizing and tracking details and meeting deadlines of multiple projects with varying completion dates.
– At least 2 years of experience contributing to financial decisions in the organization.
– At least 3 years of guidance, indirect guidance and/or cross functional team guidance.

Preferred Qualifications:

– Experience in labor & employment law and litigation in a law firm or in-house legal department
– Experience managing complex class actions and claims as well as single plaintiff cases— experience defending claims in Puerto Rico is a plus
– Experience efficiently managing outside counsel to ensure financial prudence
– Demonstrated history of questioning the status quo, identifying improvements to mitigate systemic issues and working with stakeholders to implement solutions
– Experience and judgment necessary to operate with significant self-governing in advising stakeholders at all levels from first-line managers to senior executives
– Experience advising retail businesses