Controller

Stouffer Legal

75d • Hybrid

About The Position

Stouffer Legal is seeking an experienced Controller to provide hands-on financial leadership and strategic insights as the firm continues to scale. The Controller's primary responsibility is to ensure strong financial visibility and predictability, particularly around cash flow, margins, and timing, so leadership can make informed decisions with confidence. This role blends technical accounting expertise with forward-looking analysis, systems ownership, and close partnership with leadership. The Controller sits above the firm's three Accounting Managers (who own AR/collections/payroll, AP/cash operations, and close/reconciliation/reporting respectively) and focuses on balance sheet architecture, forecasting, scenario planning, and cross-functional decision partnership rather than day-to-day transactional execution. This is a high-impact role for someone who enjoys building structure, improving financial discipline, and translating data into clear recommendations.

Requirements

• 8 - 15+ years of accounting and finance experience
• 3 - 7 years of experience leading and managing a finance team
• Strong ownership of month-end close, budgeting, forecasting, and cash management
• Experience in professional services and multi-location environments
• Experience with multi-entity and multi-state operations
• Proven ability to build, improve, and scale finance processes

Nice To Haves

• CPA strongly preferred

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain rolling 13-week cash forecast
• Ensure leadership has reliable daily and weekly cash visibility through the accounting team's reporting rhythms
• Analyze cash inflow and outflow patterns surfaced by the accounting team and translate them into working-capital strategy
• Align hiring and expansion decisions with cash availability and forecasted liquidity
• Review financial reporting produced by the Accounting Manager team and own the analytical narrative, variance commentary, and decision frameworks layered on top
• Translate financial results into clear insights and recommendations for leadership
• Highlight risks, trends, and tradeoffs proactively
• Lead scenario planning (best / base / worst case) and stress-test expansion, hiring, and investment assumptions
• Own balance sheet structure, working-capital targets, operating-reserve policy, and owner-distribution planning
• Develop visibility into contribution margins by office, service line, and referral source
• Identify cost drivers, pricing opportunities, and efficiency improvements
• Architect the annual budget and rolling-forecast model, and partner with the Accounting Manager team who owns budget-vs-actual tracking and variance surfacing
• Partner with AR leadership to analyze structural revenue-cycle trends (write-offs, refunds, payment-plan performance) and convert them into pricing, policy, and collections decisions
• Build scalable financial models and reporting for new and existing offices
• Develop standardized location-level P&Ls and ramp models
• Support expansion planning with data-backed projections
• Own financial systems and data integrity
• Set the systems roadmap that reduces the accounting team's reliance on spreadsheets and manual reconciliations
• Improve system integrations and reporting automation
• Establish and maintain internal controls and financial standards
• Review month-end close outputs with the Accounting Manager responsible for close to validate materiality, accuracy of narrative, and strategic relevance (close execution is owned by the accounting team)
• Escalate structural AP and AR trends surfaced by the Accounting Manager team into leadership decisions and policy changes
• Ensure trust accounting controls are functioning through periodic review and compliance oversight (IOLTA reconciliations executed by the accounting team)
• Coach, prioritize, and develop members of the finance team
• Identify and eliminate inefficiencies in finance workflows
• Serve as a thought partner to leadership on financial matters
• Support strategic planning and compliance readiness
• Coordinate with banks, auditors, CPAs, and other external partners
• Oversee payroll and benefits audits and compliance posture (payroll and benefits operations are owned by the Accounting Manager team)
• Monitor tax liabilities and support tax planning
• Build financial business cases for new offices, major hires, marketing investments, pricing changes, and capital expenditures
• Partner with operations, marketing, and practice leaders to translate business strategy into financial targets, unit economics, and capacity models
• Develop and maintain a long-range (3–5 year) financial model aligned with the firm's growth ambitions
• Define and govern the KPI architecture used across the firm, ensuring finance and operating metrics reconcile and tell a coherent story
• Serve as the finance point of contact for intercompany matters across Stouffer Legal, Callow Consulting, and other affiliated entities

Benefits

• Health Insurance (CareFirst) with 50% company contribution
• Dental and Vision Insurance
• Company-paid Short-term and Long-term Disability Insurance
• Company-paid Group-Term Life Insurance
• 401(k) with a match of 3%, plus 50% of the next 2%, totaling a 4% employer match, immediate vesting
• Generous PTO (Paid Time Off) starting at 20 days annually, scaling with tenure
• 7 paid holidays per year
• 3 weeks of paid parental leave
• Performance-based incentives aligned with company success

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 1-10 employees