Employment Counsel

About the role

You will own the design and implementation of Beacon's employment legal function from the ground up, establishing the policies, templates, and governance that allow our organization and our portfolio companies to scale responsibly. You will serve as the primary employment law advisor to HR and to the leadership of each operating business, translating complex legal requirements into practical, commercially sound policies and procedures. This role requires you to build repeatable frameworks and escalation protocols that standardize employment practices across a multi-entity, multi-jurisdiction portfolio while preserving the entrepreneurial culture of the companies we serve. You will manage sensitive people matters, oversee terminations and separations, and provide day-to-day counsel on the full spectrum of employment issues. You will be the single point of accountability for employment law across Beacon, defining what a high-functioning, proactive employment legal team looks like. You will partner closely with our HR team and collaborate with portfolio operators to ensure legal compliance does not become a barrier to thoughtful growth. This is a high-impact, high-autonomy role for a lawyer who thrives on ownership, variety, and building critical functions rather than only advising on individual transactions.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Employment Function Builder: Own the build-out of Beacon's employment legal function, including designing the governance model, setting employment law coverage across Beacon and its portfolio companies, and creating workflows and escalation protocols that allow the business to operate at scale.
• HR Partnership and Policy Development: Partner with Beacon's HR team to build the foundational employment relationship artifacts - employment agreements, offer letter templates, onboarding and offboarding documentation, HR policies, employee handbooks, and codes of conduct - ensuring all policies and practices are legally compliant, commercially sensible, and scalable across a multi-entity, multi-jurisdiction organization.
• Portfolio Employment Support: Serve as the employment law resource for Beacon's portfolio of vertical market software companies, resolving a full range of employment questions related to compensation and benefits, workplace accommodation, leaves of absence, performance management, misconduct investigations, and more.
• Terminations and Separations: Manage and advise on all aspects of employee terminations and separations across Beacon and its portfolio, including without-cause terminations, performance-based dismissals, restructurings, and mutual separations, drafting and negotiating separation agreements and releases.
• Employment Risk Management and Compliance: Identify, assess, and mitigate employment-related legal risks across Beacon and its portfolio, ensuring consistent compliance with applicable legislation and case law while balancing the need for operational flexibility.
• Training and Enablement: Develop and deliver practical employment law training and toolkits for HR professionals and portfolio company leaders, enabling them to handle routine matters confidently and to recognize when to escalate complex issues.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with Finance, People, and Portfolio Operations to align employment policies with business objectives, translating commercial priorities into legally robust structures and processes.
• Documentation and Process Standardization: Create clear, robust employment-related documentation and processes that are portable across entities, reducing reliance on individual knowledge and supporting consistent execution.
• Strategic Advisory: Advise on the employment law implications of portfolio initiatives, acquisitions, integrations, and organizational changes, helping the business move faster with confidence in its legal position.
• Continuous Improvement: Monitor legal developments, trends, and best practices in employment law, proactively recommending updates to policies and practices to keep Beacon and its portfolio leaders ahead of risk and opportunity.

Requirements

You must be a licensed lawyer in good standing with the Law Society of Ontario and have demonstrated experience in employment law gained in a practice or in-house setting. You must have strong experience drafting and negotiating employment agreements, severance packages, and settlement documents, and you must be comfortable handling sensitive people matters with discretion and judgment. You must be able to manage competing priorities in a fast-paced environment and be comfortable working across multiple jurisdictions and legal frameworks. You must have a proven track record of building employment functions and processes from the ground up, with a strong eye for detail and a commitment to accuracy. You must be highly organized, able to manage complex files and deadlines, and comfortable using document and matter management systems. You must be an excellent communicator who can translate legal concepts into practical guidance for non-legal stakeholders and build trusted relationships with HR leaders and business partners. You must be comfortable working autonomously and taking ownership of an emerging function with minimal day-to-day supervision.

Nice to have

Experience working with portfolio companies in a private equity or multi-entity environment, experience in the technology sector, and familiarity with employment law in jurisdictions beyond Ontario would be advantageous.

Practical notes

This role is full-time and based in Toronto, Ontario. The position reports to the VP, Legal and is expected to support an operating model that includes multiple legal jurisdictions and entities.