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Form of workWe invite you to Explore the Potential of being part of something Clearly Essential!
Compass Minerals (NYSE: CMP) is a leading global provider of essential minerals focused on safely delivering where and when it matters to help solve nature's challenges for customers and communities. The company's salt products help keep roadways safe during winter weather and are used in numerous other consumer, industrial, chemical and agricultural applications. Its plant nutrition products help improve the quality and yield of crops, while supporting sustainable agriculture. Additionally, the company is pursuing development of a sustainable lithium brine resource to support the North American battery market and is owner of Fortress North America, a next-generation fire retardant company. Compass Minerals operates 12 production and packaging facilities with nearly 2,000 employees throughout the U.S., Canada and the U.K. Visit compassminerals.com for more information about the company and its products.
Summary: Under the direction and supervision of a Vice President, Assistant General Counsel, the Paralegal & Legal Operations Manager will assist multiple Legal Team members in a broad range of legal matters with an emphasis on employment, labor and litigation support, compliance, and legal operations. This person will apply business and technical practices such as project management and data analytics to deliver the greatest value to the organization by focusing on risk management and mitigating outside counsel costs. The Paralegal & Legal Operations Manager will possess excellent written and verbal communication skills, exercise mature and professional judgment, and have outstanding time management skills. Essential job functions include, but are not limited, to the following:(Management reserves the right to add or modify the duties and responsibilities at any time.)- Support the Compass Minerals Legal Team in a broad range of legal matters, including employment and labor, environmental, administrative charges, litigation, and compliance.
- Litigation and employment case management, including management of the legal hold process, file maintenance, process service distribution, document and data collection, drafting legal documents, reviewing discovery documents, conducting fact-finding and witness interviews, assisting with responding to subpoenas, and related tasks.
- Work with Legal Team and HR business teams to provide support for employment, labor, and immigration matters, including, but not limited to, fact-finding and interviewing for employment and labor matters, data collection and assistance with drafting of position statements.
- Provide support for legal compliance including, but not limited to helping to develop, implement and track trainings and certifications related to our Code of Ethics and Business Conduct; helping to manage our ethics hotline and internal investigation processes including monitoring, tracking and reporting; and helping to develop, revise and socialize legal compliance communications and policies.
- Develop, design and report on key Legal department metrics.
- System administrator for the Legal department's e-billing system, including creation and assignment of matters, approval of timekeepers and fee structures, and management of workflows, configurations, and rule sets.
- Identify and implement Legal department tools to streamline new or existing practices, which could include document and contract management and retention systems.
- Manage the design, implementation, and training for all legal systems.
- Assist with Legal department budget, including tracking outside counsel usage and spend and reporting monthly accruals and forecasting.
- Manage outside counsel relationships, including enforcing billing guidelines, issuing engagement letters, working with the Procurement team to conduct RFPs, and negotiating fees and AFAs.
- Identify processes and procedures and other operations functions that optimize workflows within the Legal department.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams including HR, sales, support, service, business development, regulatory, IT, and finance as well as well as various business units.
- As needed, collect trademark specimens, assist outside counsel with trademark and patent filing documentation, manage the payment of maintenance fees and renewals, and related IP tasks.
- Provide other general paralegal support to the Legal Team, as needed including properly preparing documents (such as proofreading and polishing) for internal and external distribution.
- Perform other related duties as required.
- Bachelor's degree and Paralegal certification preferred or equivalent work experience.
- Minimum of 8 years of law-related experience under the supervision of an attorney, and demonstrated evidence of independent judgment, project management and substantive legal research and polished drafting skills.
- A strong understanding of employment and labor, litigation, legal drafting, and legal operations management is essential.
- Must be extremely adept with efficiently using standard word processing, PDF, and spreadsheet software as well as legal research and billing software.
- While performing the duties of this job, the employee is occasionally required to sit, stand, walk, reach with hands and arms, and stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl. The employee may on occasion need to lift and/or move up to 10 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision.
