Senior Legal Counsel- Government Contracts

About the role

Our client is a large, established professional services and technology organization with a significant federal government customer base. The company supports a range of government missions through technology, consulting, engineering, analytics, cybersecurity, and mission‑support services. Work takes place within highly regulated environments where contractual, regulatory, security, compliance, and business considerations frequently intersect.

This position offers strategic legal impact, direct interaction with senior business leaders on sophisticated legal, regulatory, contractual, and business matters, and executive visibility. It provides a leadership opportunity as the organization evaluates the next phase of its senior legal structure, allowing an experienced legal leader to influence that evolution. The role supports complex federal missions in a mission‑driven environment and benefits from the scale and resources of a major federal technology and professional‑services company.

Location: Northern Virginia.

Responsibilities

• Advise senior executives and business leaders on complex legal and regulatory matters.
• Provide strategic counsel regarding federal government contracting requirements.
• Negotiate and manage sophisticated prime, subcontract, teaming, JV, vendor, and customer agreements.
• Advise on FAR, DFARS, DCAA, CAS, ITAR/EAR, CMMC, and related regulatory requirements.
• Identify and mitigate legal, contractual, regulatory, and operational risk.
• Support government audits, investigations, disputes, claims, and compliance matters.
• Partner with contracts, finance, compliance, security, operations, and business‑development teams.
• Advise on corporate governance and strategic business initiatives.
• Support transactions and other complex corporate matters.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to the C‑suite and senior leadership.
• Depending on the eventual structure, provide leadership, mentorship, and oversight to attorneys and other legal professionals.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of sophisticated legal experience.
• Significant in‑house experience, preferably with a government contractor, defense, intelligence, technology, engineering, or similarly regulated organization.
• Deep knowledge of federal government contracting and strong FAR/DFARS experience.
• Experience with complex prime and subcontract agreements.
• Experience advising senior executives and/or boards.
• Demonstrated legal leadership experience.
• Strong business judgment and ability to operate strategically.
• Experience with regulatory compliance, risk management, investigations, audits, disputes, governance, and/or M&A.
• Active Top Secret clearance or significant experience operating within classified/national‑security environments is highly relevant.

Pay

Salary range: $200,000 – $300,000 per year.