Senior Counsel - Risk & Enforcement

United States

Full time

It's fun to work in a company where people truly BELIEVE in what they're doing!

The Senior Counsel, Risk & Enforcement will report directly to the VP, Deputy General Counsel, and Head of Intellectual Property in the Legal department. This role serves as a strategic and trusted advisor across intellectual property disputes, software enforcement matters, trade secret protection, license compliance, and related investigations, spanning both Rocket-developed and third-party offerings.

The successful candidate will bring deep litigation experience, technical fluency, and sound business judgment to protect Rocket Software's intellectual property, partner effectively with product and engineering organizations, and prepare Rocket to manage any intellectual property-related disputes before they arise. Beyond IP, the role also manages and supports other complex vendor, partner, competitor, and third-party disputes involving software, technology, confidentiality, licensing, or business conduct issues, with a defining focus on prevention, litigation readiness, evidence development, and effective resolution.

This role is not expected to own employment litigation or routine customer litigation, although it may provide support where those matters involve IP, technology, trade secret, software enforcement, preservation, discovery, or other issues within the role's subject matter expertise.

The Senior Counsel, Risk & Enforcement serves as the primary legal advisor on IP litigation, software enforcement, trade secret matters, license compliance, and other significant technology-related disputes involving both Rocket-developed and third-party offerings. Principal duties include developing litigation prevention and readiness strategies, leading internal investigations and fact development, managing outside counsel, and advising on customer license compliance and enforcement. The role partners closely with product, engineering, security, commercial, employment, and Legal Operations teams to mitigate risk before disputes arise, and is expected to operate with significant autonomy while driving cross-functional legal initiatives, process improvements, and scalable readiness programs.

• Lead Rocket's strategy for intellectual property and technology-related disputes, including trade secret, patent, copyright, open source, software licensing, and related claims.
• Serve as the dedicated legal partner for significant software and technology disputes, working directly with product management, engineering, security, services, and business teams to understand complex technical facts and translate them into effective legal strategy.
• Develop, implement, and maintain litigation prevention and readiness frameworks, including processes for early risk identification, legal holds, preservation, evidence collection, technical fact development, and escalation of material disputes.
• Lead internal investigations and pre-litigation assessments relating to potential IP misuse, trade secret concerns, software licensing, customer usage, vendor conduct, and other technical disputes.
• Advise on and lead customer license compliance and enforcement matters, including usage reviews, audit rights, demand strategy, negotiations, escalation decisions, and resolution structures.
• Advise on and manage disputes with vendors, partners, competitors, and other third parties involving software, technology, intellectual property, confidentiality, or performance issues.
• Partner with product and engineering teams to strengthen documentation, development practices, access controls, and other measures that support IP protection, trade secret protection, and future evidentiary needs.
• Manage outside counsel, experts, e-discovery providers, and other litigation vendors, including strategy, staffing, budgets, alternative fee arrangements, and performance.
• Work with Legal Operations and other stakeholders to improve discovery readiness, information governance, legal hold administration, evidence management, and repeatable litigation workflows.
• Advise senior leadership on material disputes, enforcement decisions, litigation exposure, settlement strategy, and business risk, and present recommendations in clear and practical terms.
• Monitor, analyze, and advise on developments in litigation, trade secret law, software licensing enforcement, e-discovery, and other technology-related legal areas that affect Rocket's products and business, and…