Vice President, Counsel

Guggenheim Partners•Monroe, IL

9d•Hybrid

About The Position

Guggenheim is seeking an experienced Vice President, Counsel to serve as a broad-based generalist reporting to a managing director in the Legal Group. This role will span economic sanctions and AML, anti-bribery and corruption, including political contributions and pay-to-play, data privacy and cyber security, trademark and brand protection, litigation, investigations and enforcement. This role will join a highly collaborative team responsible for supporting various functions at the corporate level. This role will assist with a variety of daily matters faced by the in-house legal group related to the growth of a global, diversified financial services business. The successful candidate will have independent legal judgment and drafting ability and experience in a variety of subject areas with an eagerness to grow and assist across a broad range of matters, developing broad in-house legal skills. This position presents an opportunity to work on interesting and challenging legal matters while being involved in a dynamic growing organization and department. The position is located in the firm’s Chicago Office and has the opportunity to report under a Hybrid work arrangement.

Requirements

Completion of a Juris Doctor degree from an accredited law school
Active bar admission in good standing
Minimum of 5 years of relevant legal experience, with in-house or financial services experience preferred
Able to travel to other locations as needed

Nice To Haves

Working knowledge of OFAC sanctions administration and AML/KYC concepts
Working knowledge of political contribution and pay-to-play pre-clearance regimes, including Advisers Act Rule 206(4)-5 and applicable state and municipal rules
Substantive familiarity with US state privacy laws and UK/EU GDPR, including cross-border transfer mechanics
Experience advising on data incident response, including identifying the breadth of an issue and assessing notification obligations across jurisdictions
Meaningful exposure to trademark, litigation and regulatory investigation/enforcement practice areas, including hands-on experience with e-discovery, and enterprise email search platforms
Experience working within an organization distributed across geographic locations
Ability to build templates, playbooks, and processes from the ground up
Ability to perform independently with exceptional legal judgment, including sound instincts about what to decide and what to escalate
Ability to operate across legal disciplines in a lean, fast-moving legal department, and to create written procedures and document templates where the process currently lives in institutional memory
Capacity to manage a mixed workload of deadline-driven transactional work and recurring compliance obligations, while maintaining strict attention to detail and prioritizing issues appropriately
Proven ability to communicate clearly and effectively
Strong problem-solving skills and a demonstrated ability to take initiative, work independently, and critically analyze issues associated with sophisticated commercial arrangements and transactions
Proactive, solutions-oriented, and collaborative; responsive to the needs of internal business partners and stakeholders

Responsibilities

Conduct reviews and administer the firm's sanctions screening program across OFAC, UK, EU, and other regimes, including screening of counterparties, vendors, and prospective employees, and pre-approval of activity involving higher-risk jurisdictions
Administer the firm's pay-to-play and political contribution pre-clearance process, including legal review, identifying courses of action, and documenting resolutions
Manage the privacy and cybersecurity program, including ensuring compliance with requirements across the US, UK, EU, and other jurisdictions; negotiating data processing agreements and privacy and security terms with vendors; and supporting the business and IT on related inquiries
Conduct security and privacy reviews and serve as legal lead in incident response alongside the CISO, scoping incidents, determining notification obligations, and directing next steps
Manage the firm-wide trademark portfolio, including new filings, jurisdiction strategy, renewals and maintenance deadlines, and addressing issues that arise
Manage and/or provide legal support to Chief Legal Officer on disputes, regulatory issues, investigation and enforcement and related matters, including arbitration and litigation, conducting document review and e-discovery searches, and reviewing filings and other documents
Serve as a responsive day-to-day in-house resource on matters, including providing advice, negotiating and drafting a range of documents
Draft, revise and maintain policies and procedures pertaining to relevant practice areas, and build forms, templates, and playbooks
Serve as a generalist attorney resource on legal, compliance and business matters and projects as they arise