Description:

The Role; Desired Candidate
A Consumer Packaged Goods Company has identified the need for someone to assume an associate counsel position joining the Upfield North American legal team to support the legal needs of the U.S. and Canada businesses. Upfield NAM is a dynamic leader within the Upfield global business as it continues to innovate both in terms of the products it offers for consumers and how it cultivates its business. The need for additional strong, multi-faceted legal support to the company and its operations is apparent.

The candidate will have a combination of firm and in-house experience and comfort with a high level of independent thinking, drafting and negotiations and will be willing to take on diverse responsibility. Our new team member will have demonstrated experience assuring the ability to provide balanced legal/commercial counsel, and the ability to maintain high degree of credibility and effective working relationship at all levels of the organization.

Primary Responsibilities:
Day-to-day responsibilities will include exposure to all disciplines making up Upfield. Candidate must have aptitude for and comfort dealing with variety of matters. This position will often be the first line of defense on a range of issues for an evolving company, including to:

Provide timely, complex analysis and guidance to ensure maximum protection of the company's legal rights and compliance with applicable laws.
Review and negotiate myriad of contracts including non-disclosure agreements, arrangements with customer and vendors supplying goods, ingredients and services, programming, marketing, influencer and talent contracts.
Support manufacturing and operations, regulatory, R&D, administrative and compliance functions, sales and marketing, HR, supply chain and procurement.
Counsel on advertising, product claims and support.
Proactively identify commercially-oriented solutions for potential risks.
Assist with administration of the legal function and corporate secretarial matters.
Conduct research relating to legal and business-related matters in evolving legal field and other ad hoc projects.
Assist with the management of litigation.

Candidate Requirements:

Attorney with minimum 3-5 years of experience, combination of firm and in-house experience is desirable (those with secondment assignments from a law firm to a company would also be differentiating factor).
Member of NJ Bar (full license or in-house counsel license) or NY Bar and willingness to take required steps promptly to qualify for NJ in-house counsel license.
In house experience in CPG or pharma industry a plus.
Experience working with multinational companies a plus.
Exposure to and comfort first chairing the structuring, drafting and negotiating of complex commercial arrangements.
Exposure to and ability to navigate digital commerce and data privacy issues.
Ability to organize and deal with multiple projects, teams, tasks, priorities and shifting and short deadlines.
Strong verbal and written communication skills; ability to influence but careful listener and willingness to collaborate.
Exceptional attention to detail.
Strong proficiency of MS Office skills, including Excel and PowerPoint.
Ability to travel as matters deem necessary (less than 10% of time).