corporate counsel

Corporate Counsel Position

The corporate counsel serves as a key member of the Legal team, providing legal support and advice to the organization on a variety of legal, regulatory compliance, and operational issues affecting the credit union under the guidance of the general counsel. This role reviews, drafts, negotiates, and manages contracts across the full contract lifecycle, from intake through execution to management, ensuring compliance with organizational policies, legal requirements, and risk standards.

In addition to the contract work, the corporate counsel conducts legal research; provides legal review, analysis, advice, and recommendations on a broad range of legal, regulatory compliance, and operational issues affecting the organization; and answers general legal and escalated inquiries from business lines that require further legal research and/or investigation. The corporate counsel also manages the legal ticketing system and collaborates closely with various lines of business to ensure timely and accurate contract execution and the effective delivery of legal services.

This position has a minimum salary of $82,300, but your offer amount may be increased with relevant work experience and transferable skills.

Role-Specific Contributions

• Serve as orsa's primary resource for contract review and management, under the direction of the general counsel.
• Support the general counsel on general legal matters and operational initiatives across the organization.
• Partner with Risk, Compliance, and business line leaders to identify and manage legal risk before it becomes a problem.
• Fulfill other responsibilities as needs evolve.

Contract Lifecycle Management

• Review, draft, and negotiate a variety of contracts, including vendor agreements, NDAs, amendments and addendums, and partnership agreements, ensuring each is structured with appropriate risk provisions and aligned with operational needs.
• Oversee the full contract lifecycle from intake through execution, renewal, and termination.
• Maintain the contract management system, ensuring document accuracy, renewal tracking, and record retention.
• Prepare reports, dashboards, and summaries of contract activity for eTeam reporting.
• Develop and maintain contract templates, playbooks, and negotiation checklists, customizing contract language within established guidelines to address specific business needs.
• Collaborate with the Risk and Compliance teams on vendor due diligence, third-party oversight, and regulatory requirements that intersect with contract terms.

Legal Advisory & Research

• Provide legal review, analysis, advice, and recommendations to leadership and team members on legal issues affecting the organization, delivering clear, practical guidance that balances risk management with business efficiency.
• Answer general legal and escalated inquiries from business lines that require further research or investigation.
• Conduct legal research, including statutes, relevant case law, and secondary materials, and prepare memoranda, correspondence, and guidance documents to support internal decision-making.
• Maintain a thorough understanding of orsa's Bylaws, policies, and procedures; stay current on regulatory requirements and advise leadership in a timely manner on needed governance or operational changes.

Legal Operations & Support

• Manage the legal ticketing system, ensuring requests are triaged, tracked, and resolved on time.
• Recommend contract management and legal operations process and system improvements that contribute to continuous improvement.
• Serve as backup to the legal process specialist in processing garnishments, subpoenas, interrogatories, and levies.
• Contact members, attorneys, courts, and other third parties to discuss legal issues and communicate on behalf of the credit union.

Qualification and Competency Requirements

As an organization focused on creating belonging, we appreciate that outstanding team members have different roads to excellence. Therefore, we don't compromise on capability but are capability but use qualifications as guidelines. Typically, we'd expect a great director/fraud & bsa to have built capabilities through experiences that would include a minimum of:

• Education: Juris Doctor (J.D.) from an accredited law school.
• Work Experience: Minimum 3 years of legal experience, including contract drafting, review, and negotiation.
• Professional Credentials and/or Certifications: Licensed and in good standing to practice law in Michigan.

Preferred Qualifications and/or Competencies

• Education: Bachelor's in business, finance, paralegal or legal studies, or a related field.
• Work Experience: Prior in-house or corporate counsel experience; experience managing or implementing contract lifecycle management or workflow platform; exposure to process improvement initiatives within a legal or procurement function; experience collaborating on legal, compliance, procurement, or risk management initiatives.
• Industry Experience: Experience in the financial industry. Familiarity with financial regulatory compliance frameworks and experience supporting financial institutions subject to NCUA, Michigan DIFS, CFPB, or OCC oversight.

The outcome of experience is our priority, so proficiency will be evaluated over means of acquiring it. Necessary competencies include:

Leadership

• Core Adaptive Capabilities: Notices patterns across contract requests and legal inquiries, such as recurring clause issues or repeat vendor pushback, and adjusts own approach as regulations and business needs change, seeking the general counsel's perspective when a situation is genuinely new.
• Human-Centered Leadership: Meets every business line request with patience and respect, making it easy and safe for colleagues to bring legal questions early rather than late.
• Strategic Thinking & Innovation: Connects each contract and legal recommendation to what the business is trying to accomplish, and offers ideas that make legal support faster and simpler to use.
• Execution in Ambiguity: Keeps multiple contracts and research matters moving on deadline when facts are incomplete, naming open questions clearly and escalating to the general counsel when the risk warrants it.
• Technology & Data Fluency: Uses the contract management and legal ticketing systems accurately and ethically, protecting confidential information and using system data to track renewals, turnaround, and workload.

Functional

• Regulatory Interpretation & Legal Advisory: Researches and interprets statutes, regulations, and case law on questions existing guidance doesn't clearly answer, and gives leaders practical advice that balances legal risk with business efficiency.
• Vendor & Contract Management: Drafts and negotiates vendor, partnership, and confidentiality agreements where the terms or risks aren't cleanly covered by orsa's templates, structuring provisions that protect the credit union while keeping work moving.
• Compliance & Regulatory Fulfillment: Independently checks contract terms against third-party oversight, vendor due diligence, and regulatory expectations, partnering with Risk and Compliance and escalating gaps clearly.
• Communication & Storytelling: Translates contract provisions and legal analysis into plain business terms, tailoring memos and guidance to the audience so business partners know exactly what to do next.
• Operations & Process Management: Runs the contract lifecycle and legal ticketing processes independently, from intake through renewal and retention, and flags when a workflow no longer fits the volume or need.

Work Model and Conditions: Hybrid

This position works in-office where working conditions, lighting, temperature, audio, and workspace are all sufficient. This position also works from home, where an appropriate work environment is required. Work requires the ability to constantly operate a computer and the ability to read, type, and communicate. Work may require the ability to move work-related supplies weighing up to 10-15 pounds.

The hybrid classification provides the opportunity to flex with purpose, empowering team members to work in locations best suited for work and life. In that spirit, those in a hybrid role are encouraged to maintain a commutable proximity to their primary work location because:

• The organization expects hybrid team members to attend certain meetings in person
• Managers may require onsite work to support outcomes
• Work model classification is subject to change

As a team member of orsa, you'll enjoy:

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans
• Generous paid time off package for all full-time team members
• Up to 12-weeks paid paternity/maternity leave
• Lifestyle Accounts to help with your personal wellbeing
• Family Health Benefits
• Paid time off to observe all Federal Holidays
• Flexible work options depending on position
• A generous 401k match
• Numerous employee engagement activities