Legal & Compliance Specialist

Job description

WalterFedy is seeking a highly organized and commercially minded Legal & Compliance Specialist to strengthen our contract governance, corporate compliance, legal operations, and enterprise risk-management practices. Reporting to the Chief Financial Officer, you will serve as a central resource for contract review and governance, corporate compliance, external legal coordination, client qualification requirements, corporate records, and AI-enabled contract review. You will help ensure potential contractual, legal, regulatory, financial, insurance, operational, cybersecurity, and reputational risks are identified early, clearly documented, and directed to the appropriate decision-makers. This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced legal operations, contracts, compliance, governance, or risk professional who enjoys building practical systems, improving processes, and translating complex requirements into clear business guidance. What You'll Do Contract Governance and Commercial Risk • Lead and continuously improve WalterFedy's contract intake, review, approval, registration, and record-retention processes. • Conduct substantive first-level reviews of client agreements, master service agreements, amendments, consultant and subconsultant agreements, NDAs, procurement documents, and related commercial instruments. • Identify and document non-standard or high-risk provisions involving liability, indemnification, insurance, payment, intellectual property, privacy, cybersecurity, dispute resolution, termination, and other commercial requirements. • Prepare clear contract risk summaries, recommended actions, decision records, and approval packages. • Coordinate reviews with Finance, Operations, project leadership, Information Technology, Human Resources, insurance advisors, executive leadership, and other subject-matter experts. • Maintain complete records of executed agreements, approvals, obligations, exceptions, and material correspondence. Legal Operations and External Counsel Coordination • Serve as the primary operational liaison between WalterFedy, the CFO, and external legal counsel. • Triage legal requests and prepare organized referral packages, background summaries, key questions, agreements, and supporting records. • Coordinate external legal reviews, contractual interpretations, disputes, claims, investigations, corporate matters, and regulatory inquiries. • Maintain accurate legal matter records, including status, ownership, next steps, due dates, privilege designations, external counsel involvement, spend, and outcomes. • Support legal budgeting, invoice review, spend monitoring, and the evaluation of external counsel services. • Protect legal privilege and confidentiality through appropriate information-handling and access practices. Corporate Compliance and Risk Coordination • Maintain a comprehensive calendar of corporate obligations, owners, deadlines, supporting evidence, and escalation requirements. • Monitor registrations, licences, certifications, permits, filings, professional requirements, and other organizational obligations. • Coordinate compliance requests across corporate functions and operating teams. • Maintain compliance dashboards, exception logs, corrective-action records, and audit-ready documentation. • Identify compliance gaps, emerging requirements, and control failures, and coordinate timely corrective action. • Prepare monthly compliance reporting and exception summaries for the CFO. • Support audits, regulatory reviews, and due diligence activities by providing accurate and traceable records. Client Qualifications and Corporate Records • Lead client prequalification submissions, renewals, and recurring qualification requirements. • Manage third-party compliance, procurement, and client qualification portals. • Coordinate responses to supplier questionnaires, qualification requests, governance certifications, and routine client inquiries. • Coordinate vendor and subconsultant due diligence, onboarding documentation, attestations, and applicable sanctions or conflict checks. • Maintain organized and appropriately protected legal, contract, compliance, governance, and corporate records. AI Contract Intelligence and Process Improvement • Act as the business owner and administrator for approved AI-powered contract review tools and associated workflows. • Validate AI-generated contract reviews, risk classifications, redline recommendations, and escalation outputs. • Establish responsible-use controls, human-validation requirements, access permissions, audit trails, and escalation rules. • Monitor quality, consistency, adoption, missed issues, false positives, and user feedback. • Improve prompts, playbooks, clause standards, risk-scoring criteria, workflows, policies, templates, and decision tools. • Deliver practical training to leaders, project managers, business development professionals, and other contract and compliance stakeholders. What You Bring • A degree or diploma in legal studies, paralegal studies, business administration, corporate governance, risk management, compliance, public administration, or a related discipline. • Five or more years of progressive experience in contract management, legal operations, legal administration, compliance, governance, risk management, procurement, or a related corporate function. • Demonstrated experience reviewing commercial agreements and translating contractual requirements into practical business actions. • Experience coordinating external legal counsel, maintaining legal matter files, and supporting executive decision-making. • Strong analytical skills, with the ability to identify inconsistencies, omissions, non-standard provisions, and emerging risks. • Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex requirements in clear business language. • Strong organizational skills and the ability to manage detailed records, sensitive information, multiple stakeholders, and competing deadlines. • High standards of confidentiality, professionalism, discretion, and judgment. Assets • Professional education or a designation in compliance, governance, risk management, contract management, privacy, records management, or paralegal practice. • Experience with contract lifecycle management platforms, compliance systems, document repositories, or AI-enabled contract review tools. • Experience in a professional services, architecture, engineering, construction, consulting, or project-based organization. What Success Looks Like • Contractual and compliance risks are identified and escalated before they become material issues. • Contract, compliance, legal matter, and governance records are complete, accurate, and accessible to authorized stakeholders. • Business leaders receive clear, timely, and practical decision support. • External legal resources are engaged efficiently and supported with well-organized information. • AI-enabled tools are used responsibly, with defined human oversight and quality controls. • Processes become increasingly consistent, transparent, efficient, and scalable. Your Role and Authority • You will classify matters using approved risk criteria, determine appropriate review and escalation pathways, request required information or approvals, and recommend risk mitigations and process improvements. • This role does not provide legal opinions, practice law, independently accept risk on behalf of WalterFedy, or approve exceptions to corporate policies, delegated authority limits, or established risk tolerances. Matters requiring legal interpretation, negotiation authority, policy exceptions, or executive risk acceptance are escalated to the CFO, external counsel, or the appropriate delegated authority. Why WalterFedy? At WalterFedy, you will have the opportunity to influence how contract governance, compliance, legal operations, and responsible AI practices evolve across a multidisciplinary, project-based organization. You will work closely with senior leadership and stakeholders across the business to build practical systems that support informed decision-making, operational excellence, responsible innovation, and strong client service. Life at WalterFedy As a national, innovative, multi-discipline design and construction collective, our ambition goes beyond great design – we are here to enhance the world around us. We need a team of agile, ambitious, and big-picture thinkers who share our drive to harness our collective talents to do something bigger. Our team is made up of the industry's best. We share a common commitment to questioning the ordinary, infusing everything we do with creativity, and challenging our industry to redefine what’s possible. How to Apply Please apply with your resume and use the link at the top of this page. You will be redirected to our internal application platform. WalterFedy strives to create a culture of inclusivity and diversity. We strongly encourage applications from all qualified individuals, including those from groups traditionally underrepresented in the workforce. We are committed to equal opportunity hiring practice and will not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, creed, national origin, citizenship, status, age, sex, gender identity/expression, marital or domestic partnership status, or disability. Should you require an accommodation to participate in the application process, please contact or call 519-576-2150. Thank you for your interest in WalterFedy! Please note that we utilize AI-powered tools to enhance our recruitment process. These tools assist us in managing applications efficiently and ensuring a fair evaluation of all candidates. Rest assured, every application is reviewed by our recruitment team, and AI is used to support, not replace, our human decision-making.