Employment Counsel

About the role

We are looking for a driven and enthusiastic Employment Counsel based in New York to join our global Legal team at Adyen. As Employment Counsel, you will own employment litigation and disputes across the US, manage our external counsel relationships, and advise the business and our HR colleagues on the employment questions that carry the most risk- the escalations that do not have a clean answer. You will also build. This is our only dedicated employment legal role in the US. While your primary coverage will be in the US, a global mindset is essential to success in the role. Alongside your caseload, you will own the frameworks, templates, playbooks, and trainings that enable our HR colleagues to move quickly on routine matters and bring us in on what matters most. You will partner with our Employment Counsel in Amsterdam, our global Corporate Legal team, and HR Business Partners around the world. This is a role for a counsel who is practical, comfortable making a call where the law is unsettled, and who would rather build something reusable than answer the same question every day.

Responsibilities

• Own US employment disputes and litigation- aligning our position with global strategy, posture, and management through to resolution.
• Instruct and manage external counsel, holding firms to scope, budget and quality, and building a panel we can rely on across jurisdictions.
• Advise on risk, balancing legal exposure against a practical business outcome.
• Partner with our HR colleagues on escalated employee matters, bringing legal judgment and privilege where it is needed and enabling them to run with the rest.
• Partner with Employment Counsel in Amsterdam.
• Build the frameworks, playbooks, and legal review of the policies that matter most.
• Advise across the full generalist range, including wage and hour, discrimination and accommodation, classification, leave, and pay transparency.
• Take a global view. Build frameworks that travel beyond the US, and shape our global employment legal strategy together with colleagues in EMEA, APAC and LATAM.
• Train and upskill HR colleagues, people leads and managers, so that good practice is built in rather than reviewed after the fact.

Requirements

• Around 7+ years of employment law experience, in house or at a law firm, including strong US employment litigation experience running matters through agencies and the courts and directing external counsel.
• Employment generalist who is comfortable with the grey. Where the