Senior Counsel - Risk & Enforcement

Job Description Summary:

The Senior Counsel, Risk & Enforcement will report directly to the VP, Deputy General Counsel, and Head of Intellectual Property in the Legal department. This role serves as a strategic and trusted advisor across intellectual property disputes, software enforcement matters, trade secret protection, license compliance, and related investigations, spanning both Rocket-developed and third-party offerings. The successful candidate will bring deep litigation experience, technical fluency, and sound business judgment to protect Rocket Software's intellectual property, partner effectively with product and engineering organizations, and prepare Rocket to manage any intellectual property-related disputes before they arise. Beyond IP, the role also manages and supports other complex vendor, partner, competitor, and third-party disputes involving software, technology, confidentiality, licensing, or business conduct issues, with a defining focus on prevention, litigation readiness, evidence development, and effective resolution. This role is not expected to own employment litigation or routine customer litigation, although it may provide support where those matters involve IP, technology, trade secret, software enforcement, preservation, discovery, or other issues within the role's subject matter expertise.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

The Senior Counsel, Risk & Enforcement serves as the primary legal advisor on IP litigation, software enforcement, trade secret matters, license compliance, and other significant technology-related disputes involving both Rocket-developed and third-party offerings. Principal duties include developing litigation prevention and readiness strategies, leading internal investigations and fact development, managing outside counsel, and advising on customer license compliance and enforcement. The role partners closely with product, engineering, security, commercial, employment, and Legal Operations teams to mitigate risk before disputes arise, and is expected to operate with significant autonomy while driving cross-functional legal initiatives, process improvements, and scalable readiness programs.
• Lead Rocket's strategy for intellectual property and technology-related disputes, including trade secret, patent, copyright, open source, software licensing, and related claims.
• Serve as the dedicated legal partner for significant software and technology disputes, working directly with product management, engineering, security, services, and business teams to understand complex technical facts and translate them into effective legal strategy.
• Develop, implement, and maintain litigation prevention and readiness frameworks, including processes for early risk identification, legal holds, preservation, evidence collection, technical fact development, and escalation of material disputes.
• Lead internal investigations and pre-litigation assessments relating to potential IP misuse, trade secret concerns, software licensing, customer usage, vendor conduct, and other technical disputes.
• Advise on and lead customer license compliance and enforcement matters, including usage reviews, audit rights, demand strategy, negotiations, escalation decisions, and resolution structures.
• Advise on and manage disputes with vendors, partners, competitors, and other third parties involving software, technology, intellectual property, confidentiality, or performance issues.
• Partner with product and engineering teams to strengthen documentation, development practices, access controls, and other measures that support IP protection, trade secret protection, and future evidentiary needs.
• Manage outside counsel, experts, e-discovery providers, and other litigation vendors, including strategy, staffing, budgets, alternative fee arrangements, and performance.
• Work with Legal Operations and other stakeholders to improve discovery readiness, information governance, legal hold administration, evidence management, and repeatable litigation workflows.
• Advise senior leadership on material disputes, enforcement decisions, litigation exposure, settlement strategy, and business risk, and present recommendations in clear and practical terms.
• Monitor, analyze, and advise on developments in litigation, trade secret law, software licensing enforcement, e-discovery, and other technology-related legal areas that affect Rocket's products and business, and translate developments into actionable guidance.
• Develop and deliver legal training and practical resources to legal, product, engineering, security, sales, and business teams on litigation readiness, trade secrets, documentation, preservation, and dispute prevention.
• Take on leadership of matters and workstreams across the full scope of the risk and enforcement function as needed, and drive cross-functional process improvement, readiness, and legal policy initiatives.

Qualifications:
• Excellent academic credentials; J.D. from an accredited law school required.
• Must be in good standing with at least one State Bar.
• Minimum of 10 years of total experience with at least 5 years of experience in a law firm litigation position, including significant in-house experience.
• Minimum of 5 years of experience managing intellectual property or technology-related disputes, including meaningful experience with software, trade secret, copyright, patent, licensing, or open source matters.
• Engineering, computer science, or other relevant technical degree preferred, together with experience in software and/or other high technology industries.
• Deep knowledge of and hands-on experience with litigation strategy, internal investigations, preservation, discovery, expert development, settlement analysis, and outside counsel management.
• Demonstrated experience developing litigation readiness, dispute prevention, trade secret protection, or enforcement programs before claims are filed.
• Deep technical fluency in software and related technologies; ability to engage substantively with engineers and product managers on technical matters and translate technical concepts into legal and litigation risk analysis.
• Experience with software license compliance and enforcement, customer or vendor disputes, and the practical and commercial considerations involved in resolving those matters.
• Demonstrated senior leadership capability, including the ability to set strategic direction, influence at the executive level, and lead complex cross-functional matters across a broad legal portfolio.
• Ability to clearly articulate and defend risk analysis; critically examine business practices to ensure they are aligned with legal requirements; and provide practical advice regarding business risk.
• Successful candidate is a proven team player and consensus builder that takes a business approach to law.
• Successful candidate is a flexible self-starter and proactive problem solver who can work autonomously and handle significant client contact.
• Effective written and oral communication skills are essential. Ability to clearly present information, in writing and orally, respond to questions from executives, managers, customers, and other employees, with focus on client service.
• Diplomatic, approachable and possessing good business and personal judgment.
• Must manage conflicting demands from multiple business clients in a fast-paced environment.
• Excellent organizational skills; ability to manage multiple projects at once, follow through and meet deadlines.
• Inherent ability to act with the highest integrity and professionalism.

Information Security:

Information security is everyone's responsibility. A fundamental principle of information security at Rocket Software is that all individuals in the organization have a responsibility for the security and protection of company information and IT Resources over which they have control, according to their role.

Diversity, Inclusion & Equity:

At Rocket we are committed to an inclusive workplace environment, where every Rocketeer can thrive by bringing their full selves to work. Being a Rocketeer means you are part of our movement to continually drive inclusivity, diversity and equity in our workforce.

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Annual salary range for this position is between $112,500.00 - $151,875.00 gross before taxes.

What Rocket Software can offer you in USA:

• Unlimited Vacation Time as well as paid holidays and sick time
• Health and Wellness coverage options for Rocketeers and dependents
• Life and disability coverage
• Fidelity 401(k) and Roth Retirement Savings with matching contributions
• Monthly student debt benefit program
• Tuition Reimbursement and Certificate Reimbursement Program opportunities
• Leadership and skills training opportunities