Head of Employment Law and Litigation #4939

Responsibilities

• Head GRAIL’s employment law strategy and advise senior leaders, in partnership with the HR Business Partners, on complex employment matters.
• Serve as the primary legal partner to the Chief People Officer and the People team leadership, translating complex legal issues into practical, business-oriented advice.
• Lead strategy for employment litigation, administrative proceedings, and pre-litigation disputes.
• Provide legal guidance to the employee relations function on sensitive workplace investigations.
• Enhance employment policies, agreements, playbooks, training, and manager guidance that enable consistent and scalable practices.
• Head GRAIL’s Litigation practice, excluding IP litigation.
• Direct outside counsel, litigation strategy, discovery, settlement decisions, drafting motions, budgets, and resolution of significant matters related to non-IP litigation.
• Draft pre-litigation correspondence, demand letters, and subpoena responses.
• Identify emerging litigation risks and recommend proactive strategies, policies, processes, and controls to mitigate them.
• Partner across Legal, People, Compliance, Finance, Security, Communications, and other teams on matters involving significant legal, employee, business, or reputational risk.
• Serve as a member of GRAIL’s Legal Leadership Team.

Required Qualifications

• JD from an accredited law school and active membership in good standing with at least one U.S. state bar.
• Licensed to practice law in California.
• 15+ years of legal experience with significant depth in employment law and litigation.
• 2+ years experience in a senior leadership or management role, including leading attorneys and managing multi-functional legal teams.
• Strong litigation experience from a nationally or regionally recognized law firm, including direct employment litigation experience.
• Deep knowledge of federal and state employment laws, with experience advising on complex and high-risk employee matters.
• Demonstrated experience leading significant litigation, managing outside counsel and legal spend, and evaluating litigation and settlement strategy.
• Experience overseeing sensitive workplace investigations.
• Track record of advising senior executives and People leaders with sound judgment, discretion, and a practical business mindset.
• Trial, arbitration, mediation, and deposition experience.
• Able to thrive in a fast-moving environment, navigate ambiguity, and communicate complex issues clearly.

Preferred Qualifications

• Meaningful in-house experience in public companies within the biotechnology, life sciences, diagnostics, pharmaceutical, medical device, or laboratory industry.
• Experience with UK and other international employment matters.