About Rack Room Shoes

Great shoes for men, women and children in comfort, dress, casual, and athletic categories make Rack Room Shoes the family footwear retailer of choice. The company offers a wide selection of nationally recognized brands known for their quality. Rack Room Shoes also offers an assortment of exclusive private brands commissioned from the best manufacturers in the business. Our private brands offer customers great styles and outstanding values, which translates into satisfied, loyal, repeat customers.

About Rack Room:

Rack Room Shoes is recognized as a footwear industry innovator and has proudly served our communities, pairing people with their favorite shoes for over 100 years. We offer a great variety of on-trend styles for women, men and children in athletic, comfort and dress categories. We pride ourselves on a delightful and trusted shopping experience for our valued customers while offering an outstanding value on a wide selection of nationally recognized brands and exclusive private labels. We operate approximately 530 stores in 36 states.

Position Description:

As Employment Corporate Counsel, you will have the opportunity to serve as in-house counsel for a large, privately held retail company. In this role, you will partner with our Chief Legal Officer working closely with our Human Resources and Store Operation teams, providing legal advice and counsel on a wide range of employment law matters. Your in-house expertise in retail, restaurant, or other multi-state, multi-location business will be crucial to your success as the legal expert in areas such as the hiring process, compensation, employee relations, discipline, termination, accommodations, leaves of absence, employee benefits, discrimination, harassment, and retaliation at both federal and state levels. A key measure of your success will be your ability to develop, train and implement effective, practical processes, policies and methodologies to foster an employment culture that adheres to applicable law, minimizes risk and reduces exposure to employment related claims.

Core Responsibilities:

• Offer proactive and practical advice to the HR team and internal business partners on various employment issues, such as recruiting, hiring, termination, wage and hour, performance management, discrimination, accommodations, leave, retaliation, and employment health and safety.
• Monitor and stay current with federal, state and local employment, benefit and compensation laws and regulations.
• Draft and maintain employment policies and training materials.
• Work (and foster awareness) with key business partners across HR and Store Operations to prioritize action plans in response to current and impending federal, state and local laws and regulations requiring action.
• Collaborate with key business partners to create a plan that identifies trends in non-compliance and potential areas of vulnerability and risk; develop and implement corrective action plans.
• Manage and provide oversight of employment litigation, agency matters, and health and safety initiatives.
• Develop and implement best practices for wage and hour, retention and other employment related record keeping requirements.
• Provide direct support on labor and employment matters affecting stores, distribution centers, and corporate locations, including investigations, litigation and advisory assistance.
• Collaborate effectively with in-house subject matter experts and external legal counsel, working closely with HR and business leaders to achieve business goals while adhering to applicable laws and supporting the company culture.
• Conduct audits to ensure business operations remain in compliance with applicable federal, state and local laws.
• Partner with HR and Store Operations to implement and monitor training programs to ensure regulatory compliance as needed.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Ability to identify, explain and balance complex issues, business and legal risks in a common sense, practical and “laymen’s terms” manner.
• Build relationships with business partners, senior leaders and external counsel.
• Ability to work collaboratively.
• Must have a “drive for results” attitude with an eye on completing work on time.
• Ability to provide practical, effective counsel, find alternative solutions to problems, and hold the line when warranted in a respectful and authoritative manner and suggest workable alternatives to meet the desired goals.
• Ability to simultaneously work on a wide range of mission-critical projects with minimal supervision.
• Detail-oriented, resourceful, adaptable, flexible, organized, discreet and cost-conscious problem solver who can remain calm and work under pressure.
• Proven experience as an independent, efficient, and successful negotiator/mediator.
• Sound judgement and strategic thinking in all legal matters.
• Excellent written and oral communications skills.
• Ability to work efficiently, prioritize and meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment.

Minimum Requirements:

• Juris Doctor (JD) degree and active bar membership.
• Extensive experience in labor and employment law; California employment experience a plus.
• 5-10 years of relevant experience, preferably with an in-house law department and/or law firm experience; recent experience in retail employment operations and developing/implementing employee training is advantageous.
• Strong knowledge of U.S., multi-jurisdictional, and employment laws.
• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively with internal and external stakeholders.
• Ability to travel if necessary (less than 10%)
• This position is in Charlotte, NC and will be subject to the company’s hybrid work arrangements. The candidate must be willing to relocate, if not already in the Charlotte area. Local candidates preferred.

Work Environment: Office Environment

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by individuals assigned to this job. They are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills requires of the position. All employees may have other duties assigned at any time.