The Northwestern Mutual Law Department is seeking a knowledgeable and experienced attorney who is interested in joining a challenging and fast-paced practice advising the Company on a wide range of employee benefits and employment law matters. The successful candidate will play a critical role in advising and supporting the Company on matters related to employee benefits, including retirement plans and health and welfare programs, and employment law matters. What You'll Do: This attorney will be a member of the Law Department's Corporate Team, which is responsible for providing legal support and advice in the areas of company tax, investment tax, product tax, human resources, employee benefits, and general corporate matters. This attorney will report to the Vice President - Corporate Counsel in the Law Department. Specifically, this attorney will: • Provide legal advice on the design, implementation, and administration of employee benefit programs, including retirement plans, health and welfare plans and other benefit programs. Ensure compliance with federal and state laws, including the federal tax code and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). • Collaborate with the company's human resources and management teams to develop and revise employee benefits policies and procedures, ensuring they align with current legal standards and best practices. • Assist in drafting, reviewing, and maintaining legal documents, disclosures and communications related to employee benefits, such as plan descriptions, regulatory filings and claims and appeals. • Identify potential legal risks associated with employee benefit programs and provide strategic solutions to mitigate these risks. • Stay informed on changes in employee benefits law, tax regulations, and ERISA requirements. Provide updates and recommendations based on new legal developments. • Support and grow their expertise over time to provide counsel on employment law issues, including recruiting and hiring, wage and hour compliance, leave and accommodation programs, workplace investigations, performance management, restrictive covenants, terminations, pay equity, compensation, labor relations, and employment-related policies and procedures. • Collaborate with other attorney specialists in the securities, distribution and sales, financial planning and insurance areas in support of the above efforts. What You'll Bring to the Role: • Candidates must have at least three years of legal experience gained at a law firm, an in-house legal department and/or through a government position advising on employee benefit matters. • The ideal candidate will have significant familiarity with retirement plans, health and welfare programs and fringe benefit programs, as well as a strong understanding of taxation and application of ERISA to such programs, and preferably familiarity with federal, state, and local employment laws and regulations. • Candidates must have a willingness to expand their practice over time to include a broad range of employment law matters. • Candidates must have the ability to analyze a variety of legal issues, synthesize complex information, research effectively, and provide solution-oriented legal advice to business professionals throughout the Company. • Candidates must have an exemplary academic record and a Juris Doctorate. A license to practice law in the State of Wisconsin or a commitment to become licensed within the first year of employment is required. • Excellent interpersonal, communication and presentation skills, a highly analytical and curious mind, strong attention to detail, creative, comfortable dealing with ambiguity, of high integrity and ethical standards, and evidencing a positive demeanor. • Proven ability to collaborate and contribute effectively in a team environment and across teams within and outside of the Law Department; exceptional partnership and relationship building skills. • Self-motivated with the ability to work proactively and autonomously and to effectively prioritize multiple tasks at the same time. • A keen problem-solving approach using sound legal reasoning and practical business judgment to identify and address risks and achieve results that balance benefits for all parts of the enterprise. Skills You Will Have: • Attention to Detail: Focuses on specific details to spot and correct errors in advance of them being found and surpass quality expectations. Performs work with thorough proofreading for presentation, content, accuracy, and overall quality. • Continuous Improvement: Utilizes available methods to identify opportunities, executes solutions and measures impact to improve existing practices and processes. Implements feedback and lessons learned. Leverages the ability to identify and experiment assumptions and hypothesis for products to be able to refine and improve them at any stage of the life cycle. • Decision Making: Makes timely, data-driven decisions by understanding the probability of success, identifying risks, gathering business requirements, and developing value statements. • Policy & Procedure: Analyzes current policies and procedures, identifies gaps or areas for improvement, and develops and implements new policies and procedures to address those gaps. Ensures compliance with regulatory requirements and industry standards, as well as effectively communicates policies and procedures to employees and stakeholders. Understands the various components of a workflow, identifies bottlenecks, and implements improvements to increase productivity, reduce costs, and streamline operations. • Risk Assessment & Identification: Leverages industry knowledge to determine and seek hazards that could potentially prevent the program, enterprise, or investment from achieving their objectives; designs systematic processes of identifying severity of hazards and evaluating the scale and impacts of any associated risk on the business. #LI-Hybrid Compensation Range: Pay Range - Start: $144,000.00 Pay Range - End: $216,000.00 Geographic Specific Pay Structure: Structure 110: $158,400.00 USD - $237,600.00 USD Structure 115: $165,600.00 USD - $248,400.00 USD We believe in fairness and transparency. It's why we share the salary range for most of our roles. However, final salaries are based on a number of factors, including the skills and experience of the candidate; the current market; location of the candidate; and other factors uncovered in the hiring process. The standard pay structure is listed but if you're living in California, New York City or other eligible location, geographic specific pay structures, compensation and benefits could be applicable, click here to learn more. Grow your career with a best-in-class company that puts our clients' interests at the center of all we do. Get started now!