Manager, Commercial Counsel

About the Role

As the Manager, Commercial Counsel, you will be providing comprehensive legal and business support to assigned business divisions and strategic business units, interfacing with various functions including sales, engineering, product, customer service, finance, and supply chain, while focusing on commercial and regulatory risk mitigation and contract strategy. This role requires intermediate-level experience in contract review, drafting, and negotiation of multi-million-dollar agreements, along with the ability to handle complex negotiations with minimal supervision and provide strategic counsel to operational managers across multiple business functions. The successful candidate must possess strong communication skills for interfacing with customers, suppliers, and external counsel, demonstrate cross-functional collaboration abilities, manage litigation and outside counsel relationships, maintain a basic understanding of financial concepts, and exhibit advanced project management capabilities while working closely with the VP, Associate General Counsel, and legal leadership to support significant matters impacting the global enterprise.

Your Team

You will be interfacing with operational or functional teams of the division, managing legal risk, making legal decisions, and escalating based upon Legal department guidelines, the company’s exposure, and GAR.

What You Will Do

Managing Legal and Business Risk Across the functions for the division and its SBUs (including the LATAM region):

• Commercial Legal Support: Partner with sales teams to review, draft, and negotiate diverse commercial agreements (products, services, licensing, joint developments, vendor agreements), provide antitrust guidance (e.g. MAP), train sales team on contracts/processes, and oversee commercial litigation with outside counsel.
• Compliance & Regulatory Management: Identify legal and regulatory issues across product initiatives and customer agreements, manage privacy/data security compliance, coordinate with trade compliance teams on export controls and tariffs, and work with product compliance on regional regulatory requirements and certifications.
• Financial Legal Partnership: Advise finance teams on contractual rights and obligations including audit rights, payment terms, defaults, and royalties while managing external counsel spend aligned with annual legal budgets.
• Procurement Support: Negotiate supplier agreements and advise on contract terms to address supply chain issues including consignment and exclusivity arrangements.
• Strategic Risk Management & Leadership: Provide practical legal advice in a fast-paced environment, conduct risk assessments, address unforeseen legal risks, support customer service teams with disputes and regulatory liability issues, and help develop scalable legal processes and resources.

What You Need to Be Successful

• Legal Qualifications & Experience: Juris Doctor and U.S. Bar admission, with 8+ years of relevant in-house or law firm experience providing strategic legal counsel to business divisions.
• Contract Expertise: Extensive experience reviewing and negotiating complex commercial agreements (distribution, dealer, e-commerce, licensing, supply agreements) and managing contract lifecycle from negotiation to execution, including familiarity with contract management systems.
• Regulatory & Industry Knowledge: Deep familiarity with industry regulations including safety standards, data privacy laws (GDPR, CCPA), MAP, selective distribution, consumer safety laws (CPSC), export regulations, and understanding of consumer product lifecycle.
• Dispute Resolution & Litigation Management: Proven experience in negotiation, mediation, and managing litigation while overseeing outside counsel, with ability to advise leadership on matter resolution decisions and approval escalations.
• Strategic Leadership & Skills: Strong analytical and project management capabilities, ability to work under pressure with multiple stakeholders, exercise sound judgment in decision-making, and collaborate strategically with legal leadership and business clients on broader departmental initiatives.

Critical skills required to perform the core responsibilities of the position:

• Legal Communication: Translate complex legal issues into comprehensible terms for business clients and communicate effectively across all organizational levels to enable information sharing across the legal team.
• Commercial-Legal Integration: Consider commercial impact when applying legal principles, seek regular feedback on business needs, and use legal expertise to anticipate client needs and add value
• Project and Resource Management: Effectively prioritize, delegate, and supervise external legal resources and project teams while identifying potential legal and compliance issues and consulting with stakeholders for solutions.
• Internal Development and Mentoring: Takes initiative to develop internal guidance documents for business benefit and makes time to support and mentor junior colleagues.
• Strategic Networking and Relationship Building: Networks within the legal industry and develops sustainable, effective relationships both within the legal team and across the primary client business units.

Bonus Points if You Have

• Spanish or Portuguese fluency
• Serves as a legal role model, creating a constructive and collaborative working environment.

What Makes You Eligible

• Be willing to travel up to 10%, domestic and international travel.
• Be willing to work remotely and occasionally in an office located in one of the following: Northridge, CA, Richardson, TX, or Novi, MI.
• Successfully complete a background investigation and drug screen as a condition of employment.

What We Offer

• Competitive wellness benefits and 401K Retirement Savings plan.
• An inclusive and diverse work environment that fosters and encourages career development opportunities.
• Flexible work schedule with a culture encouraging work-life integration and collaboration in a global environment.
• Professional development opportunities through HARMAN University’s business and leadership academies and extensive course catalog.
• Tuition Reimbursement.
• Access to employee discounts on world-class HARMAN products (JBL, Harman/Kardon, etc.).
• “Be Brilliant” employee recognition and rewards program.

#LI-EC1