About the role
The Head of Commercial Transactions is a senior legal executive responsible for enterprise‑level leadership of one or more legal subject‑matter areas.
This role provides strategic legal direction, owns functional risk posture, and may oversee Managing Counsel and other people leaders. This role is a member of the Legal leadership team and ensures that legal services are delivered in a scalable, consistent, and risk‑aligned manner across all North America Global Business Units.
What you'll be doing
Enterprise Leadership & Strategy
Establishes legal strategy, risk tolerance, and governance frameworks for assigned practice area(s), including the development of enterprise‑wide legal policies, SOPs, and escalation protocols.
Advises executive leadership on high‑risk, high‑impact legal and regulatory matters, including material contract disputes, regulatory enforcement actions, and emerging legal risks arising from new legislation or rulemaking.
Ensures alignment between legal strategy and business objectives.
Partners with the Deputy General Counsel and other Heads of Counsel on cross‑functional initiatives, including enterprise risk assessments, regulatory readiness reviews, board reporting, and coordinated responses.
People Leadership
Oversees senior legal people leaders, establishing clear authority matrices, approval hierarchies, and decision‑rights frameworks governing how legal matters are staffed, escalated, and resolved.
Sets expectations for escalation, decision‑making, and performance.
Responsible for talent strategy, succession planning, and development, including identifying skill gaps across the legal team, designing continuing legal education, and ensuring attorneys maintain bar admissions and compliance with applicable professional responsibility obligations.
Operational Oversight
Ensures consistent legal delivery, prioritization, and escalation by implementing workload management systems, matter intake processes, and service‑level expectations for internal client response times.
Owns scalable legal platforms and processes (e.g., CLM, governance tools), including oversight of contract lifecycle management technology, legal hold and preservation systems, document management platforms, and outside counsel management databases.
Approves non‑standard risk positions and exceptions, including deviations from standard contract terms, waivers of corporate policy, and acceptance of indemnification or liability outside established parameters.
SPECIFIC LEGAL ACCOUNTABILITIES
Commercial Transactions
Sets contract risk frameworks, approval thresholds, and fallback positions, including defining enterprise‑wide standard terms for limitation of liability, indemnification, intellectual property ownership, data protection obligations, insurance requirements, and representations and warranties.
Oversees negotiation strategy for commercial agreements and partnerships, including master services agreements, joint ventures, licensing arrangements, distribution and reseller agreements, SaaS and technology agreements, and supply chain contracts.
Leads legal oversight for mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and integrations, including management of legal due diligence workstreams (corporate, employment, IP, litigation, regulatory, environmental, real estate, tax), negotiation and drafting of definitive transaction documents (purchase agreements, merger agreements, contribution agreements), ancillary transaction documents (transition services agreements, intellectual property licenses, non‑competition agreements), and post‑close risk remediation including the integration of acquired entity contracts, policies, and compliance programs.
Owns CLM strategy, standardization, and enterprise adoption, including the design of contract templates and playbooks, implementation of automated approval workflows and clause libraries, and reporting on contract cycle times, deviation rates, and risk exposure metrics.
About you
Juris Doctor (J.D.) and active license to practice law in at least one U.S. jurisdiction.
12-15+ years combined in‑house and/or law‑firm experience, with substantial experience in at least one of the following: complex commercial transactions, mergers and acquisitions, employment law, civil litigation, regulatory compliance, data privacy, or technology law.
Demonstrated experience leading senior attorneys and people leaders, including managing teams of five or more attorneys across multiple practice areas or geographies.
Proven ability to advise executive stakeholders on enterprise‑level legal risk, including direct experience counseling C‑suite executives, board committees, or equivalent senior leadership on matters involving significant financial exposure, regulatory risk, or strategic business decisions.
Why choose us?
It's an exciting time to be part of our team. We're proud to be a global thought-leader and care about doing the best job we can to ensure better futures for everyone. We do this by building our Future@Work strategy as a united team of 30,000+ colleagues with a collective spirit working in over 60 countries globally.
You'll have the opportunity to grow across a variety of interesting jobs and careers over our extensive portfolio of global brands. We empower our colleagues to work in the smartest, most efficient ways to achieve total balance between the demands of their jobs and their lives. That's why we give you the autonomy and support you need to work in the way that makes you most productive, agile, confident, and insightful.
Putting people first, pioneering with a collective spirit and always advancing with a growth mindset -that's what we stand for at the Adecco Group. Here, we are all individuals with a unique perspective on the world we live in. That's what makes us stronger. Whoever you are and whatever your background, you can be yourself. So, we aim to build on the attributes that make you, you. We offer a range of world-class resources for upskilling and development, satisfying your curiosity while the sharing skills, knowledge, and expertise to grow together.
Make an impact where it matters most.
A journey to bring out the best in you
Adecco Group North America, through an impressive portfolio of staffing industry leading brands including Adecco General Staffing, Entegee, Lee Hecht Harrison Professional Recruitment, Modis, and Pontoon is the world's leading provider of Human Resources solutions.
We are the workforce experts delivering staffing and career service solutions to organizations and individuals across all industries. Collectively we harness the power of some of the greatest talent in the world. That talent and expertise allows us to do business globally and act locally with deep knowledge in niche areas.
Every day, we have more than 100,000 associates on assignment, 30,000 colleagues working internally to support more than 10,000 clients in the United States and Canada. Ensuring our business units are prepared to deliver outstanding service to our associates and clients, the Adecco Group North America team provides a strong infrastructure through our corporate and shared services teams.
Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled
To read our Candidate Privacy Information Statement, which explains how we will use your information, please navigate to https://www.adeccogroup.com/privacy-policy/candidate-privacy-information-statement-en
The Company will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records in accordance with federal, state, and local laws and/or security clearance requirements, including, as applicable:
The anticipated annual base salary range for this position is $143,504 - $263,091. Compensation varies based on a variety of factors including, but not limited to, experience, education, key skills, and geographic location. In addition to base salary, the position is also eligible for incentive compensation based on achievements outlined in the compensation plan.
Benefit offerings for full-time employment include medical, dental, vision, term life and AD&D insurance, short-term and long-term disability, additional voluntary benefits, commuter benefits, wellness plans, and a 401k plan or a non-qualified deferred compensation plan. Available paid leave includes Personal Time Off (PTO) on an accrual basis up to 152 hours a year, 10 Paid Holidays, 1 Community Service Day, and up to 6 weeks of Paid Parental Leave. PTO and holiday hours are prorated based on hire date within the calendar year.
Posting date: 07-21-2026