Description:

(Up to $175,000 for qualified candidate plus benefits and relocation allowance.)

Do you want to help farmers and businesspeople get creditors off their backs, preserve assets, and minimize taxes like no other law firm in the country? Ag & Business Legal Strategies is an entrepreneurial boutique firm that is on track for growth. It needs an experienced MANAGING ATTORNEY to join its team and collaborate with its owner, attorneys, and staff to support the team and help clients. The selected Managing Attorney will have the opportunity to become an owner of this dynamic law firm.

ABLS' specialized expertise has landed the firm's owner in venues from Congress (where he has championed changes to how the Bankruptcy Code impacts taxes owed by “right-sizing” farmers and advocated changes to the bankruptcy venue laws to require Chapter 11 debtors to file bankruptcy where they do business rather than where they are incorporated), to the United States Supreme Court (submitting an amicus curiae brief supporting farmers in Chapter 12), to appearances on various radio programs popular within the farming community across the Midwest. The owner is a frequent presenter at legal education seminars and ag financial industry training seminars across the United States.

ABLS exists to help farmers and business owners, providing them with cutting-edge services in debt restructuring negotiations and bankruptcy. Its client-centric model aims to help farmers and businesspeople understand the depth of their problems and explore the opportunities for change available to them, including options they might not initially like. ABLS aims to help its clients find comprehensive solutions to their complex problems, not merely continuing to kick the can down the road without making the business decisions that the client needs to make to ensure long-term success.

ABLS is known for helping its clients emerge from their extreme and stressful situations with the best outcomes possible. We are growing and we need a MANAGING ATTORNEY who can hit the ground running.

This position will be responsible for important work, including:

Collaborating with the owner to take over day-to-day management of the firm; supervising the delivery of legal services by the firm's staff; ensuring that staff meet their key performance indicators; evaluating staff and conducting periodic reviews of staff performance.
Identify training, recruitment, client needs/opportunities, and current trends that may be impactful to the Firm in collaboration with the Administrative and Management Team.
Work closely with Firm's HR Team to proactively identify employee and contractor staffing needs and participate in vetting process as needed.
Maintaining excellent communication with clients, advisors, opposing counsel, courts, and other interested parties.
Supervising and assisting the firm's qualified staff and professionals in evaluating the client's overall financial, tax, and legal position.
Assisting clients in determining realistic goals then designing strategies to accomplish those goals.
Providing excellent legal services, including legal research; drafting petitions, schedules, motions, pleadings, orders, and status updates; and overseeing and analyzing discovery. The Managing Attorney may delegate to Junior Associates and Paralegals to accomplish these tasks but remains responsible for the final work product.
Representing clients at mediations, negotiations, depositions, and in court, whether state court, federal district court, or bankruptcy court.
Conducting new client meetings (also called case evaluations or initial consultations) to sell the firm's legal services.

Technology & Systems Use
This firm uses a mixture of technology and carefully crafted policies and procedures to help leverage the firm's team to benefit its clients and deliver a consistently excellent work product . Consequently, the following duties are critical aspects of this position.

Management:

Collaborate with the owner of the firm, its professional legal administrator and/or Chief Operating Officer, as relevant, to refine and optimize the firm's policies and procedures that are relevant to any workflow within the Managing Attorney's area of responsibility.
Train subordinate staff (e.g. paralegals, legal secretaries, et.al.) on the firm's policies and procedures, and audit compliance with the same as appropriate.
Cultivating expert familiarity with the firm's law practice management software and other technological systems to leverage these tools to enhance efficiency and consistency of the firm's work product through all cases.

Systems Refinement:

Using and following the firm's policies and procedures to ensure efficient and consistent work product through all cases.
Making suggestions to continually improve those technologies, policies, and procedures.

If the statements below appeal to you, then you may be our next Managing Attorney:

You desire to own the preeminent law firm in the United States handling farm debt restructuring and bankruptcy.
You desire to become a preeminent lawyer advocating for farmers and businesses.
You are familiar with bankruptcy and taxes related to distressed businesses.
You are an awesome task juggler and can change gears quickly.
You are a team player, willing to pitch in if your coworkers are in the weeds.
You abhor mediocrity and strive to consistently improve your work product.

ABLS wants its Managing attorney to hit the ground running. This is an exciting opportunity for a right-fit candidate to work directly with Joseph Peiffer, one of the leading experts in the country in distressed agricultural debt cases, Chapter 12 bankruptcy, and other business matters, and grow into increasing levels of authority and autonomy as the firm grows. An ideal candidate will be excited by the opportunity to work with and learn from one of the foremost experts in this field; embrace technology and a systems-driven entrepreneurial law firm culture; and have a passion for bankruptcy and tax law, particularly their interactions in the agricultural industry.

Education:
A Managing Attorney candidate must have a law degree from an accredited law school and be licensed in the state of Iowa or could be licensed in the state of Iowa within a reasonably short period of time. Attorneys licensed in the state of Illinois are encouraged to apply as the firm has worked for several Illinois farm debtors.

Experience:
A Managing Attorney candidate must have experience in bankruptcy and debt restructuring and with a work history that demonstrates increasing responsibility in a law firm or corporate legal department. The ideal Managing Attorney candidate will have confirmed at least five Chapter 11 or Chapter 12 plans (or have equivalent experience on the creditor side) and participated in numerous related activities (motions to lift stay, motions to incur secured debt, motions to assume or reject leases and executory contracts, claim objections, plan objections, adversary proceedings, etc.).

An ideal Managing Attorney candidate has subject matter expertise in the following three areas:

Bankruptcy & commercial law.
Knowledge and familiarity with the agricultural industry.
Understanding of how income taxes affect businesses struggling to survive and considering partial or complete liquidation.
Ability to evaluate probable outcomes in bankruptcy scenarios.
Ability to determine the priority of liens on real and personal property.
Negotiation practice.
Income tax.

Technical skills:
An ideal Managing Attorney candidate has the following technical skills:

Experience in program management, including experiences such as project management, tracking deliverables, hiring, planning, and development
Strong record of cultural competence and cross-cultural communication skills
Demonstrated ability to communicate effectively and persuasively both orally and in writing
Demonstrated effective and authentically engaged leadership; ability to critically assess challenges and propose and execute solutions, with appropriate consultation and visibility to leadership; excellent professional judgment
A deep understanding of and ability to work and lead effectively with internal and external stakeholders
Ability to work effectively with people of diverse backgrounds, lived experiences, and communication styles

Compensation:
The target compensation for an ideal Managing Attorney is up to $175,000 per year, contingent on experience and hitting clear, defined, benchmarks. It includes a generous benefits package and significant opportunities for professional development. If needed, ABLS will provide a relocation allowance to aid the right candidate in moving to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

How to Apply:
Please submit your resume and cover letter to us. In your cover letter, answer the following questions: What do you enjoy about working with family-owned businesses? What do you find most challenging about this type of client? You should be detailed in your response, but don't go over two paragraphs. You should also tell us in another pa