Senior Legal Counsel

Hickory partners with craftsmen and business owners who build their reputations one job, one hard-earned milestone at a time. Our company is named for one of the strongest trees in nature, known for its toughness and resilience.

That strength is our symbol and our promise to the Hickory family of brands.

The Role

We’re hiring our first Senior Counsel, Legal — the architect of the legal function at Hickory. This is a builder’s seat. You aren’t inheriting a polished playbook; you’re writing it. You’ll own employment law, contract law, and M&A activity across our family of brands, and you’ll be the person who turns legal from a reactive bottleneck into a real force multiplier.

We believe Legal works best when it’s embedded in the business.

This role is in person at our main office in the Bronx, New York, with regular travel across the tri-state area to our brand locations. Presence matters — the work happens at the table.

A Day in the Life

You’re closing a redline negotiation with opposing counsel before lunch and walking a department head through a sensitive employment matter by mid-afternoon. In between, you’re on a call with a target company’s CFO about working capital, and you’re sketching the new vendor contract intake process on your whiteboard. You move between the immediate and the institutional — solving today’s problem while building the system that prevents tomorrow’s.

That oscillation between the weeds and the horizon is where you thrive.

What You’ll Own

Employment Law

Partner with the People function on the full lifecycle: hiring practices, employee relations matters, separations, accommodations, wage & hour compliance across the tri-state, and the policies that keep us audit-ready. You’re the steady hand managers turn to when the situation is ambiguous and the stakes are real.

Contract Law

Own the commercial contract function end-to-end — drafting, reviewing, negotiating, and managing our portfolio of vendor agreements, customer contracts, MSAs, NDAs, and partnership deals. Build the playbooks, templates, and intake systems that let the business move fast without losing rigor.

M&A and Due Diligence

Lead the legal workstream for acquisitions across the Hickory family of brands: due diligence management, target company assessments, deal structuring input, transaction documentation, and post-close integration. You’re the person who flags the issue in the data room before it becomes a post-close surprise — and the person who builds the diligence checklist we’ll reuse on the next deal, and the one after that.

Process & Infrastructure

This is a build job. You’ll create the legal operating system from the ground up: contract intake workflows, signature routing, document management, escalation criteria, outside counsel management, and the matter tracker that gives leadership visibility into legal risk in real time. If a process doesn’t exist yet, you build it. If it exists but doesn’t work, you redesign it.

People-Oriented Partnership

You aren’t the “no” person. You’re the partner who explains the risk, frames the trade-off, and helps the business get to yes the right way. You build trust by being present, accessible, and proactive — sitting with operators in their work.

Shared Operating Principles

• Use data to tell the story. Legal data lags business data — your job is to close that gap.
• Travel within the tri-state to be present with our teams, not just visible from HQ.
• Operate as a true partner to People, Finance, and Operations leadership. Legal is a critical teammate here.

Qualifications

Experience: 8+ years of legal practice with meaningful depth across employment law, commercial contracts, and M&A. In-house experience strongly preferred. Prior experience standing up or substantially rebuilding a legal function is a major plus.

Education: JD from an accredited law school. Active bar membership in New York.

Builder’s Mindset: You’re energized by white space and ambiguity. You see process gaps as opportunities, not obstacles. You ship a v1 and iterate.

Judgment: You know when to elevate, when to stand firm, and when to find a creative path forward. You hold the line on what matters and bend on what doesn’t.

Partnership Instincts: You translate legal complexity into language operators can act on. People-oriented is a soft skill that is a standard for this seat.

In-Person Commitment: This role is based in the Bronx, NY, in person. Valid driver’s license and willingness to travel regularly within the tri-state area required.

We offer a comprehensive benefits package including:

• Significant and explosive career growth at a high-growth company
• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• PTO
• 401(k) retirement plan with company match

This job description is intended to outline the general nature and level of work associated with this position. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, or qualifications. Responsibilities may evolve, and Hickory reserves the right to modify work assignments, responsibilities, and schedules as business needs change.

New York, NY: $175,000 – $190,000 for Senior Counsel, Legal Base Salary

Hickory is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment regardless of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.