Job Description

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, Fiduciary Litigation / Corporate Legal

This position reports to the Assistant General Counsel in the Litigation, Investigations and Regulatory Enforcement group. The Litigation, Investigations and 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 litigation in North America arising from fiduciary services The Northern Trust Company provides through its Wealth Management business unit.

The key responsibilities of the role include:

•    Manages and supports all aspects of matters assigned to the Fiduciary Litigation Division, including trust- or estate-related litigation and disputes typically involving assets under custody or management, customers, beneficiaries or related third parties. Develops appropriate case 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 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. 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.
•    Drafts, facilitates and implements legal hold notices.
•    Leads and supervises factual investigations in connection with a wide range of legal issues to identify issues in dispute and to support pending and potential litigation matters.
•    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.
•    Responsible for preparing partners, with or without the assistance of outside counsel or senior internal counsel, for deposition and trial/hearing testimony.
•    Owns and 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 possess a J.D. degree from an accredited law school and must meet attorney licensing requirements in the jurisdiction in which the position will be located, prior to and after commencing employment and at least five years as a lawyer with a full-time litigation practice 
•    Must have at least three to five years of full-time business litigation or fiduciary litigation experience. An ideal candidate also will have represented litigants in the financial services industry and in trusts and estates litigation.
•    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.
•    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).
•    Collaboration, confidence, insightfulness and tech-savvy. 
•    Strong leadership, analytical abilities and judgment. 
•    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.