Legal Counsel Lead

Overview

Legal Counsel Lead, Corporate Commercial - Permanent Full time

Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba

Work Arrangement: Hybrid

Salary: $137,573 to $229,292

Manitoba Public Insurance’s Legal Services Department has an exciting opportunity for an experienced corporate commercial lawyer to lead our Corporate Commercial legal team.

Reporting to the Director, Legal Services, the Legal Counsel Lead, Corporate Commercial is both a senior legal advisor and a people leader. The successful candidate will provide practical, strategic advice on complex commercial matters while overseeing the work of lawyers within the Corporate Commercial team. The role will work closely with business leaders across MPI, support major corporate initiatives, and help ensure that Legal Services delivers timely, relevant and solutions-focused advice.

At MPI, we are committed to supporting our lawyers in maintaining and advancing their professional expertise. We offer payment of annual Law Society practicing fees, employer-paid membership in the Manitoba Bar Association and Canadian Bar Association, as well as financial support for conferences, courses, and other professional development opportunities.

Responsibilities

• Provide guidance, coaching and mentorship to legal counsel and articling students.
• Foster a collaborative, client-focused team culture.
• Draft, review and negotiate a broad range of complex commercial agreements, including information technology agreements and licences, consulting and service agreements, commercial leases, information-sharing agreements and other strategic transactions involving government, Crown corporations and external stakeholders.
• Provide legal advice throughout the procurement process and draft and review procurement documents.
• Provide practical, risk-based legal advice to business units and senior leaders on corporate commercial, procurement, technology, intellectual property, privacy, access to information, compliance and related matters.
• Act as legal counsel on significant corporate projects and strategic initiatives.
• Identify opportunities to improve Legal Services processes, service delivery and collaboration with internal clients.
• Assist the Director, Legal Services with departmental planning, resource allocation and matters involving significant legal, financial, operational or reputational risk.

Qualifications

Education:

• A Bachelor of Laws or Juris Doctor degree from a recognized Canadian (or equivalent) law school.
• Call to the Manitoba Bar, or eligibility to be Called to the Manitoba Bar.

Experience:

• At least eight years of progressive experience in the practice of law, with significant experience in corporate commercial law - drafting, reviewing and negotiating complex commercial agreements.

Technical Knowledge & Skills:

• Demonstrated ability to provide practical, risk based legal advice on complex matters involving competing legal, commercial and operational considerations.
• Strong judgment, negotiation, analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to manage competing priorities and deliver timely, solutions focused legal services in a complex organization.
• A collaborative and client-focused approach, with the ability to build effective relationships across different levels and areas of an organization.

The following would be considered assets:

• Experience leading, supervising or managing a team or experience providing mentorship, guidance or work direction to junior or intermediate lawyers, even where that experience was not gained in a formal management role.
• Experience working in government, a Crown corporation, the broader public sector or another regulated environment.
• Experience with public-sector or government procurement.
• Experience drafting and negotiating large or complex information technology, software, cloud services, systems integration or technology implementation agreements.
• Experience advising on privacy and access-to-information matters, particularly under Manitoba’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and Personal Health Information Act.
• Experience advising senior leaders on significant projects or matters involving legal, financial, operational or reputational risk

Conditions of Employment

• Applicants must provide a criminal record check as part of the hiring process. 
• Applicants may be required to complete testing as part of the recruitment process. 

Employee Benefits

Health benefits

We offer a comprehensive health benefits program that includes:

• flexible health, dental and vision plans
• health spending account
• travel health coverage
• other extended health benefits such as ambulance, massage and physiotherapy

Financial security

In an effort to support financial security, we offer:

• registered pension plan
• group, dependent, and optional life insurance coverage
• sick leave to cover short-term disability
• long-term disability

Wellness

We offer programs that focus on how to better achieve a balance between work and personal commitments, as well as maintain a healthy workplace culture. This includes:

• vacation entitlement
• maternity, parental and adoptive leaves
• bereavement and family responsibility leaves
• employee and family assistance program
• mental-health programming
• onsite employee gym facility (Cityplace)
• discounted gym memberships
• wellness account

Diversity and inclusion

Manitoba Public Insurance believes that diversity and inclusion strengthens us. We consider ourselves to be a barrier-free organization where individual values, beliefs and practices are respected and appreciated for the diversity they bring to our work life.

Employee recognition

It’s important to recognize our employees for their contributions. Not only do we recognize employees as they achieve milestone years in their careers, we also have several outlets for leaders and peers to reward each other for work well done.

Professional development

We want our employees to grow, which is why we offer support in keeping their skills up to date. We offer in-house training, professional development and an educational assistance program.

Safety and health

In an effort to encourage a safe and healthy work environment, we offer various safety, health and workplace policies and programs along with technical expertise and assistance to support employee activities in safety and health.