Senior Legal Counsel, NA Commercial

CHEP helps move more goods to more people, in more places than any other organization on earth via our 347 million pallets, crates and containers. We employ approximately 13,000 people and operate in 60 countries. Through our pioneering and sustainable share-and-reuse business model, the world’s biggest brands trust us to help them transport their goods more efficiently, safely and with less environmental impact. 

What does that mean for you? You’ll join an international organization big enough to take you anywhere, and small enough to get you there sooner. You’ll help change how goods get to market and contribute to global sustainability. You’ll be empowered to bring your authentic self to work and be surrounded by diverse and driven professionals. And you can maximize your work-life balance and flexibility through our Hybrid Work Model.

• →Provide reliable, cost-effective, and timely legal counsel to business units across a wide array of matters affecting the region and the global corporation.
• →Advise on and negotiate commercial transactions, contracts, and agreements with key customers, vendors, and service providers, ensuring alignment with business goals and legal standards.
• →Offer strategic legal guidance on major transactions, including mergers and acquisitions (M&A), with a focus on identifying risks and conducting necessary due diligence.
• →Manage day-to-day legal issues for business operations, including matters related to plant operations, logistics, asset management, and real estate (e.g., leases, property agreements).
• →Anticipate, mitigate, and manage legal risks by providing proactive legal strategies and monitoring emerging legal trends that may impact the business.
• →Lead the company’s litigation strategy, manage disputes, and handle intellectual property rights issues, leveraging external counsel when necessary.
• →Support the development of company policy, operational improvements, and procedural enhancements by providing legal insights on regulatory compliance and business operations.
• →Research and monitor evolving legal issues, using external counsel where needed, to provide pragmatic, business-oriented legal advice to senior leadership.

The Senior Legal Counsel, Commercial serves as the lead legal business partner for customer-facing and revenue-generating activities across North America. This role provides pragmatic, business-focused legal advice on commercial transactions, strategic customer arrangements, contract negotiation, pre-litigation disputes, growth initiatives, customer NDAs, and strategic projects across the U.S. and Canada.

• Serve as primary legal advisor to Commercial, Sales, Key Accounts, and other designated customer-facing business teams

• Draft, review, negotiate, and advise on customer agreements, amendments, order forms, NDAs, pilot agreements, strategic partnership arrangements, and other commercial documents.

• Provide legal advice on customer claims, contract disputes, escalations, and other pre-litigation commercial matters.

• Support strategic growth initiatives, new offerings, business transformation projects, and other revenue-related initiatives requiring legal input.

• Develop and maintain commercial templates, clause libraries, fallback positions, negotiation guidance, and approval frameworks to improve consistency and contracting efficiency.

• Partner with legal operations and business stakeholders to improve intake, triage, standardization, and self-service for lower-risk commercial work.

• Escalate significant legal, financial, reputational, or strategic issues to the General Counsel as appropriate.

• Exemplary written and verbal communication skills.

• Business acumen as applied to commercial contracts and disputes.

• Strong work ethic, coupled with superior multi-tasking capabilities.

• Knowledge of commercial contracts and dispute resolution practices is essential.

• Must be a team player, and highly approachable.

• Strong interpersonal, presentational and networking skills

• Strong analytical and technical legal skills – including drafting, negotiating, risk mitigation and problem resolution

• Must be able to work autonomously

• Dynamic, energetic, positive

• J.D. and active bar membership in at least one U.S. jurisdiction or Canada jurisdiction

• Bachelor's Degree and qualification from an accredited law school

• • Experience in creating or improving process and automation for the efficient and effective delivery of legal services

  • Experience working with digital technology such as AI tolls and systems to support the efficient and effective delivery of legal services

  • Experience working in a global company

  • Experience in matrixed environments

• At least 8+ years post qualification experience

• Experience in drafting, reviewing, negotiating and managing commercial contracts with a customer-centric mindset.

• Essential: English

• Desirable: Spanish