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About the Role

The Director of Risk and Legal Counsel is a leadership role responsible for establishing, leading, and continuously improving RJC’s legal, contract, professional liability, regulatory, and enterprise risk practices within a consulting engineering environment. This role provides strategic and practical legal leadership that helps RJC assess opportunities, negotiate balanced agreements, manage disputes, strengthen governance, and make sound risk-informed decisions.

Responsibilities

Lead, maintain, and mature the firm’s established enterprise risk management framework and risk appetite statement.
Work with stakeholders across the firm who own and lead their own risk mitigation strategies, aligning them to the enterprise framework and appetite statement.
Conduct regular and continuous risk assessments across corporate and operational business units to identify emerging and existing risks.
Present strategic risk profiles, mitigation metrics, and emerging trends to the Executive team and senior leadership.
Lead the development and execution of RJC’s legal and contract risk strategy, ensuring practical, consistent, and commercially balanced guidance across offices, regions, and practice areas.
Provide senior-level advice and escalation support to principals, project leaders, and corporate teams on complex contracts, procurement documents, project delivery issues, disputes, and risk allocation.
Develop a Project Risk review protocols and establish an oversight committee from operations to review major client contracts, joint ventures, sub-consultant and confidentiality agreements.
Set firm-wide standards for managing contract risks, and lead the development and maintenance of contract templates, guidance notes, playbooks and training materials that improve consistency and decision quality across the firm.
Support operations to minimize corporate exposure related to professional liability, errors and omissions (E&O), and design warranties.
Provide oversight and audit of internal operational QA/QC processes.
Lead legal and commercial risk review for major pursuits, strategic clients, high-risk projects, and non-standard contract terms, including advice on negotiation strategy and executive escalation.
Provide strategic oversight of professional liability, errors and omissions, design responsibility, site-service, delay, change, payment, and dispute-related matters.
Manage claims in collaboration with the operational leaders, to direct the strategy for resolving professional liability claims and commercial disputes, in conjunction with our insurance provider and external legal counsel.
Manage and direct relationships with insurers, brokers, and external counsel on claims, threatened claims, dispute strategy, settlement discussions, litigation, arbitration, and lessons learned.
Translate claims and near-miss experience into practical loss-prevention initiatives, capturing lessons learned and feeding them back into project delivery.
Lead RJC’s approach to professional-practice, licensing, corporate registration, procurement, privacy, records-management, anti-bribery, conflict-of-interest, and other regulatory compliance matters relevant to a consulting engineering firm.
Strengthen governance processes, internal policies, compliance reviews, and responses to regulatory inquiries or investigations in collaboration with senior leaders and external advisors.
In collaboration with Operations, and supported by the Health and Safety Program Advisor, establish and implement the strategic vision for RJCs safety culture through Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) programs across the firm.
Ensure strict compliance with occupational health and safety legislation, site-specific safety regulations, and hazardous environment protocols.
Oversee accident investigations, root-cause analyses, and corrective action implementation.
Partner with Human Resources on people-related matters including workers’ compensation claims, incident-related employee matters, accommodations, return-to-work processes, and related compliance requirements.

Requirements

Member in good standing of a Canadian law society, with an LL.B. or J.D. and the ability to provide legal advice in the provinces in which RJC operates.
5 - 8+ years of relevant legal experience, including leadership or advisory experience with consulting engineering, architecture, construction, or project-based organizations.
Demonstrated ability to lead legal, contract risk, claims, compliance, governance, or enterprise risk functions, including setting strategy, establishing processes, advising senior leaders, and influencing decision-making across a complex organization.
Proven experience developing, implementing, or maturing enterprise risk management frameworks, risk registers, risk appetite statements, compliance programs, and related reporting processes.
Strong understanding of contractual, professional liability, regulatory, health and safety, operational, and reputational risks within a professional services, engineering, construction, or project-based environment.
Commercially minded, pragmatic, and relationship-oriented, with the judgment, credibility, and communication skills required to advise Executives, Principals, and Project leaders on high-stakes matters.
Experience developing and leading contract templates, legal playbooks, risk-review processes, governance practices, training, reporting, or compliance programs.
Experience advising employee-owned, multi-office, or partnership-style professional services organizations would be considered an asset.

Skills

Creative Mindset
Proactive Approach
Supportive Teamwork
Trusted Advice
Lead with Purpose

Location

Vancouver
Toronto
Edmonton
Calgary

Work Type

Full-time

Experience Level

5 - 8+ years

Education Level

LL.B. or J.D.

Salary/Compensations

$160,000 to $190,000

Benefits

Competitive compensation and performance-based bonus program.
Opportunity to participate in RJC's share ownership program.
Comprehensive benefits package, including Health Care Spending Account.
Maternity and Parental Leave Top-Up Program.
RRSP matching program.
A collaborative and supportive employee-owned culture.
Meaningful opportunities for professional growth and leadership development.

About the Company

At RJC, our greatest strength is our people.
For over 75 years, we have built a reputation for technical excellence, trusted relationships, and a commitment to making a positive impact on our clients, our communities, and one another.
As an employee-owned organization, we take pride in creating an environment where people are empowered to grow, collaborate, and contribute to something larger than themselves.
As we look to the future, we are focused on strengthening our organizational capabilities, deepening collaboration across disciplines and regions, leveraging our collective knowledge, and embracing innovation that enhances the value we deliver to clients.