Senior Legal Counsel, Litigation, Investigations & Regulatory Enforcement

About Northern Trust:

Northern Trust, a Fortune 500 company, is a globally recognized, award-winning financial institution that has been in continuous operation since 1889.  

Northern Trust is proud to provide innovative financial services and guidance to the world’s most successful individuals, families, and institutions by remaining true to our enduring principles of service, expertise, and integrity. With more than 130 years of financial experience and over 22,000 partners, we serve the world’s most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

Role/ Department: Senior Legal Counsel—Litigation, Investigations & Regulatory Enforcement

This position reports to the Global Head of Litigation, Investigation & Regulatory Enforcement group. The Litigation, Investigation & Regulatory Enforcement group has a global mandate, advising all Northern Trust entities on an array of legal matters, including pre-litigation business problems, corporate and representative litigation, government inquiries, cyber, privacy and internal investigations. This role will focus on general corporate litigation, litigation arising out of non fiduciary client services, internal investigations and regulatory enforcement matters.

The key responsibilities of the role include:
•    Manages and supports all aspects of pending and threatened litigation, new or ongoing investigations and a variety of regulatory enforcement matters for Northern Trust’s Legal Department.
•    Develops appropriate strategy in consultation with senior internal counsel. Implements strategy and proactively coordinates deliverables with internal and external partners. 
•    Reviews, revises and makes timely recommendations to senior internal counsel regarding memoranda, motions practice and draft agreements proposed by outside counsel.
•    Advises Northern Trust partners on litigation strategy and risk.
•    Oversees internal discovery efforts with or without outside counsel, including coordination with internal e-discovery team about document identification, searching, collection, and production. 
•    Drafts, facilitates and implements legal hold notices.
•    Leads and supervises factual investigations in connection with a wide range of legal issues to identify problems and to support pending and potential litigation, investigations and regulatory enforcement.
•    Effectively and respectfully interacts with partners (e.g., relationship managers, Risk/Compliance, Tax, Legal Department, Human Resources) or external parties (e.g., regulators, other financial institutions, investigations staff) in the course of information gathering, as appropriate.
•    Conducts complex research and timely prepares summaries of findings.
•    Provides assistance in responding to regulatory inquiries and complaints.
•    Responsible for preparing partners, with or without the assistance of outside counsel or senior internal counsel, for deposition and trial/hearing testimony.
•    Supports team tracking and reporting requirements.
•    Handles assorted miscellaneous litigation matters with minimal supervision.
•    Researches and recommends hiring of and works collaboratively with outside counsel and other legal and forensic vendors.

Skills/Qualifications:
• Must have a valid license to practice law in Illinois and at least five years as a lawyer with a full-time business litigation practice advising clients in highly regulated industries. 
• Must have experience as the lead lawyer preparing witnesses and supervising complex discovery in business litigation.
• Must have experience with subpoena and discovery responses, including document identification, collection, and production. A successful candidate will understand written and electronic discovery well-enough and will learn Northern Trust’s data map well-enough to, for example, spot problems with discovery suggestions from outside or opposing counsel and advise senior internal counsel accordingly.
• Must have familiarity with legal holds, document management applications (such as Everlaw, Relativity, Concordance, Nebula, etc.) and secure electronic document sharing (such as FTP sites).
• This role requires collaboration, confidence, insightfulness and tech-savvy. 
• The candidate must have strong leadership, analytical abilities and judgment. 
• The position also requires exceptional communication and organizational skills to work effectively and cooperatively with internal and external clients, management and staff and to coordinate business functions with other departments on dozens of matters simultaneously.
• This is a hybrid role located in Chicago, Illinois, and will work out of Northern Trust’s offices in downtown Chicago at least three days per week.