Associate General Counsel – Contracts & Legal Operations

Where you will work: This position offers a hybrid work option up to 50% and is based out of any Compeer Financial office, such as the Naperville, IL, Lakeville, MN, Sun Prairie, WI, or Bloomington, IL office locations.

The contributions you will make: This position provides legal counsel and strategic contracting support for third-party and vendor engagements and our library of commercial loan document templates. Reviews and advises on specific commercial and agricultural credit agreements as needed.

This position provides the substantive legal judgment which allows our compliance and operational team members to execute at scale by developing and maintaining contract standards (including checklists, templates, clause libraries, and negotiation playbooks), reviewing third party contracts, negotiating and drafting agreements, making risk-based legal decisions, and leading the harmonization and periodic review of the organization’s library of commercial and agricultural lending contract templates.

The ideal candidate combines sound legal judgment with a systems-oriented mindset – someone who finds satisfaction in building scalable processes and standards, not just in reviewing individual transactions. This attorney partners closely with members of the Information Risk & Compliance team, business stakeholders, and members of the Commercial Finance team within the Legal / Compliance department to ensure that contract review is both legally rigorous and responsive.

A typical day: 

Commercial Contract Review and Negotiation

• Reviews and negotiates technology, vendor, and service provider contracts, applying consistent standards and appropriate legal risk judgment, with an emphasis on technology and outsourced services (e.g., SaaS, cloud/hosting, managed services, professional services/SOW’s, data processing, and strategic vendor arrangements).
• Develops, maintains, and continuously improves a contracting standards framework (e.g., checklists, contract playbooks, and escalation thresholds) that enable efficient, consistent contract review.
• Provides timely, practical legal advice to internal business partners to enable business objectives while managing legal and regulatory risk.
• Makes risk-based decisions on contract terms, including liability allocation, indemnification, intellectual property, confidentiality, data security, audit rights, and dispute resolution.
• Approves legal risk exceptions where contracts deviate from organizational standards, documenting rationale and any compensating considerations.
• Partners with members of the Legal team to ensure efficient intake, triage, and turnaround of contract review and negotiation requests., Handles escalated negotiations with third parties when standard terms are rejected or when business needs require non-standard agreements.

Contract Forms Management

• Responsible for the organization’s inventory of commercial and agricultural lending contract templates, including loan agreements, security instruments, guarantees, and related documents.
• Responsible for the effort to harmonize the organization’s legacy forms to standardize provisions, align risk management approaches, and ensure template documents work together coherently.
• Manages the periodic review cycle for legal forms, coordinating and contributing to in-house and outside counsel review according to established schedules and risk tiers.
• Partners with the Legal team members on version control, metadata management, and template distribution processes.

Complex Commercial Finance Contract Review

• Serves as backup legal counsel to the organization's commercial finance and capital markets teams, providing contract review and legal advice against defined legal standards on a portfolio of complex commercial syndicated and participated middle market, large corporate, and institutional loans.
• Supports the review of loan pool purchases when the organization purchases pools of commercial or agricultural loans.
• Works closely with other members of the Legal and Compliance department, providing contract review support during periods of absence or high volume.

Strategic Leadership

• Champions the brand; serves as a role-model for the vision, mission and values of the organization. Supports Compeer’s strategic initiatives.
• Assists leadership in defining the legal team’s strategic direction and goals.
• Keeps abreast of industry best practices.  Identifies and executes efficient and effective practices that enhance the team’s value.

The skills and experience we prefer you have: 

• Juris Doctor from an American Bar Association accredited law school.
• Admission to practice law in at least one U.S. State (and the ability to obtain admission in Minnesota, Wisconsin or Illinois within the first year).
• Intermediate-level experience (4+ years) in commercial transactions, contracts, or lending, whether in a law firm or corporate law department.
• Experience developing or improving contract processes, templates, playbooks, or clause libraries, and driving measurable cycle-time improvements, preferred.
• Background in financial services, lending, or other regulated industries, with exposure to audit or exam-driven contracting requirements, preferred.
• Exposure to third-party risk management, vendor management, or procurement legal processes, preferred.
• Experience with legal forms management or contract harmonization projects, preferred.
• Familiarity with technology consulting, including SaaS agreements, data security terms, and service level agreements (SLA’s), preferred.
• Process orientation, including a demonstrated ability to build systems, standards, and repeatable processes.
• Comfort with iterative improvement: experience identifying inefficiencies and implementing and continuously improving solutions over time.
• Ability to balance standardization with appropriate flexibility for business needs.
• Understanding of contract law, risk allocation, and commercial terms in vendor and technology agreements, preferred.
• Familiarity with lending documentation, security instruments, and commercial finance transactions, preferred.
• Strong attention to detail and high accuracy.
• Analytical, critical thinking and decision-making skills.
• High level of integrity.
• Flexibility in a fast-changing environment.
• Strong interpersonal skills to establish and maintain effective working relationships with others using tact, courtesy and good judgement; capable of influencing without formal authority.
• Presentation, negotiation, influencing and organizational skills.
• Strong oral and written communication skills to effectively communicate complex topics to a variety of audiences and to write legal contracts and documents.
• Creative problem-solving ability.
• Ability to remain objective in balancing business needs and risk.
• Ability to prioritize assignments and work independently in a timely manner.

How we will take care of you:

Our job titles may span more than one career level (associate, senior, principal, etc.). The actual title and base pay offered is dependent upon many factors, such as: training, transferable skills, work experience, business needs and market demands. The base pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future. This role is eligible for variable compensation and other benefits.