The posting
At Jimerson Birr, our team has accepted the lasting responsibility of protecting our clients’ rights, businesses, properties, investments, and finances.
Our professionals are integral, trusted advisers and advocates in both established and emerging businesses, giving our clients insights into legal and business considerations that guide prudent decision-making. We work with some of the world’s most respected and well-established businesses, as well as start-up visionaries, and individuals looking to overcome challenges.
About the Role
We’re hiring a Business Advisory & Transactional Team Leader to serve as a player-coach. You’ll balance a selective personal docket with the leadership of a small, high-performing team. Your mandate: distribute work intelligently, enforce standards, and keep clients confident through predictable execution. You’ll still step into negotiations and strategic moments, while owning team-level performance and client satisfaction.
This is your seat if:
• You want to keep practicing at a high level and lead a team: not choose between the two.
• You’d rather build a repeatable process than let each matter run on individual style.
• You hold people to a standard, then coach them up to it.
• You’re comfortable being judged on your team’s numbers, not just your own docket.
• You catch a risk or a stalled matter before it becomes a client problem.
What You’ll Do
Structure and Govern the Business
• Handle entity formation and initial structuring, and draft core governance documents — bylaws, operating agreements, and articles.
• Advise on ownership and capital structuring: shareholder agreements, equity resets, buy-sell planning, breakups, succession planning, and cap table maintenance.
• Structure executive compensation, including offer letters and equity grants and vesting.
• Counsel on board architecture and operations — board structure, meetings, consents, resolutions, minutes, reporting, and formalities — plus director elections, proxies, and shareholder relations.
• Advise on corporate authority matters, including delegations of authority and approval matrices.
Run the Deals
• Negotiate joint venture agreements, licensing, distribution, and co-marketing agreements.
• Draft and negotiate commercial contracts (MSAs, SOWs, vendor and customer terms) and SaaS/subscription terms (MSAs, order forms, renewals).
• Support capital raises (SAFEs, notes, seed rounds) and investor diligence, and structure debt financing and credit facilities, including secured and unsecured loans, lines of credit, and UCC filings.
• Run mergers, acquisitions, and sales of business assets, including buy-side and sell-side due diligence packages.
• Represent franchisors (development, agreements, compliance, franchisee relations) and franchisees (compliance, enforcement of rights, transactions).
Manage Risk and Lifecycle Events
• Advise on enterprise risk management: insurance, indemnity, specialized compliance, and D&O coverage.
• Build contract management playbooks, compliance calendars, policies, and training, and manage corporate records and data privacy (records retention, baseline data privacy compliance, vendor terms, incident plans).
• Handle crisis corporate actions: rapid consents and restructures — and business wind-down and dissolution.
• Spot tax issues and coordinate with specialists, and advise on asset protection: titling, structuring, creditor protection, insurance overlay, and estate planning alignment.
Leadership and Delivery
• Run the weekly team operating meeting: review scorecards, staffing/case mix, SLA health, risks, and priorities; remove blockers and keep matters on plan.
• Ensure even work distribution and throughput to hit utilization and SLA targets; uphold adoption of playbooks, templates, and tech.
• Coach attorneys and paralegals to execute the proven process and QA standards — no ad-hoc practice.
• Own client satisfaction, retention, and expansion across your team’s portfolio; maintain alignment calls and decision logs.
• Keep a select personal docket focused on high-impact negotiations, governance counseling, and complex structuring.
• Partner with Practice Area Managers to validate data integrity, dashboard health, and early-warning signals.
How You Create Impact at Jimerson Birr
- Bill — Production & Oversight: Own your own production and your team’s aggregate output; ensure the right person does the right work at the right time.
- Build — Process, Product & Technology: Drive adoption/optimization of templates, matter plans, and platforms; keep checklists accurate and repeatable.
- Bridge — Clients & People: Lead client relationships, mentor talent, and ensure clean cross‑team handoffs.
What You'll Bring
- JD and active membership in the Florida Bar
- 7–10+ years of transactional experience with clear leadership signals (delegation, coaching, judgment)
- Track record leading negotiations/closings and managing complex workflows
- Strength in triage, prioritization, and team communication
- Comfort operating in a structured, scorecard‑driven environment
Preferred Qualifications
- First‑chair experience on significant M&A or strategic transactions
- Experience with multistate, multi‑entity, or complex commercial structures
- Prior player‑coach or team‑lead experience
Why Join Jimerson Birr?
You’ll practice inside a client-service model designed to create consistent value:
• Conferring client-defined value: Clarify objectives, success criteria, budget, timeline, and communication preferences at intake, then manage to them.
• Accessibility: Keep lines open and responsive; clients never guess how to reach us or when they’ll hear from us.
• Efficiency & cost-effectiveness: Staff matters smartly, use technology and checklists to reduce friction, and provide early assessments for predictable spend.
• Delivering an experience while delivering results: Make progress visible with alignment calls, status summaries, and documented decisions.
• Meaningful partnership: Anticipate needs, surface options, and help clients plan the next goal beyond the one we just achieved.
• Accountability to goals: Hold the team (and yourself) to timelines, scopes, and outcomes; surface risks early and propose fixes.
Join a dynamic team that values professional growth and excellence in legal service. We offer competitive compensation, professional development opportunities, and a supportive work environment dedicated to fostering your success.
We’ve found that the key to doing great work is to love what you do and respect who you do it with. To continue reading about our firm, visit our website Jimerson Birr.
Our atmosphere and award-winning firm culture is collegial and professional, and our shared commitment to professional development is superior to our contemporaries. Learn more about our firm culture here: JB Firm Culture: JB FOR ME.
WHY APPLY?
You’ll get a Challenging Opportunity with a Company that Cares About Its Most Valuable Asset: YOU! At Jimerson Birr, we pride ourselves on our people and their collective achievements. Besides our list of legal industry honors, in 2021 and for the seventh consecutive year, the firm was named one of Florida’s “Best Companies to Work For” by Florida Trend Magazine. In recent years, the firm was also distinguished as one of the “Best Places to Work” by the Jacksonville Business Journal and five times as one of the “50 Fastest Growing Companies.” Opportunities abound for those who can meet and exceed the expectations set for our team. Jimerson Birr is comprised of high-performing and professionally fulfilled people. We believe that a positive attitude, personal accountability, and a commitment to quality work will put a talented person on a fast track for success. Our atmosphere and award-winning firm culture are collegial and professional, and our shared commitment to professional development is superior to our contemporaries.
Our core values are simple: Commitment to service; Commitment to quality; Commitment to results. We live our core values, and we welcome you to live them with us.
Jimerson Birr is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants receive consideration for employment and all employees are treated during employment without regard to race, color, sexual orientation, religion, sex, age, national origin, genetic information, disability, veteran status, gender identity, and marital status.
