Description:
RWJBarnabas Health, New Jersey's largest nonprofit academic health system, seeks a Senior Vice President, Assistant General Counsel to lead the enterprise employment, labor, benefits, immigration, workforce investigations, and workforce compliance legal function. Reporting to the Chief Legal Officer, this executive serves as the system's senior legal authority on workforce matters, advising executive leadership and the Board while leading a team of employment, labor, benefits, and immigration attorneys. The role combines sophisticated legal judgment with business partnership in a highly regulated, unionized, 24/7 healthcare environment.As Senior Vice President, Assistant General Counsel – Employment, Labor, Benefits & Immigration, a typical day might include the following:
- Advising senior executives and HR leaders on complex, high-risk workforce matters, including employee relations, executive employment agreements, accommodations, disciplinary actions, terminations, and workforce restructuring.
- Leading enterprise labor strategy by partnering with HR and operational leaders on collective bargaining, union negotiations, arbitrations, NLRB matters, organizing activity, and labor implications of operational changes.
- Overseeing sensitive workforce investigations involving harassment, discrimination, retaliation, executive misconduct, and other high-risk employee matters, ensuring appropriate privilege, documentation, and remediation.
- Providing strategic counsel on benefits and compensation including ERISA compliance, executive compensation, retirement and health plans, plan changes, fiduciary matters, and Compensation Committee activities.
- Guiding immigration and global mobility strategy for physicians, researchers, and other international talent, overseeing visa sponsorship, permanent residency, I-9/E-Verify compliance, audits, and external immigration counsel.
- Monitoring and mitigating workforce legal and regulatory risk across areas such as wage-and-hour, EEO, OSHA, pay transparency, employee classification, leave, accommodations, screening, and licensure requirements.
- Leading and developing the workforce legal team by setting priorities, managing outside counsel and legal spend, establishing risk metrics and reporting, providing legal training, and serving as a strategic member of the Chief Legal Officer's leadership team.
This role might be for you if:
- You bring deep expertise advising complex, highly regulated organizations on sophisticated employment and labor law matters.
- You have significant experience supporting unionized workforces, including collective bargaining, NLRB proceedings, arbitrations, organizing activity, and labor strategy.
- You excel at navigating high-stakes workforce matters, from executive employment issues and investigations to litigation, restructurings, and sensitive employee relations matters.
- You are a trusted advisor to senior executives and Boards, with the judgment and discretion to navigate complex, highly sensitive issues with enterprise-wide implications.
- You have successfully built and led high-performing legal teams, while effectively managing outside counsel, legal spend, priorities, and enterprise risk.
- You thrive in a complex academic healthcare environment and are energized by partnering across HR, Compliance, Medical Affairs, Talent Acquisition, and operational leadership to solve challenging workforce issues.
