Legal Counsel

LEGAL COUNSEL

Job Code: LGLCNSL

Reports To: VP, Compliance & In-House Counsel

Base Location: AZ or CO

Work Status: Virtual Office

Minimum Starting Monthly Range: $11,589

Hiring Range (Monthly Pay): $11,589 - $13,333

Full-time / Part-time: Full-time

Exempt / Non-Exempt: Exempt

Risk Designation: Extremely High

Summary:

The Legal Counsel is an integral part of Contexture's small but mighty legal team, providing a broad range of legal support and advice to the organization. This position involves interpreting laws, rules, and regulations; providing legal advice to Contexture personnel; negotiating and drafting agreements; and monitoring legislative changes. The role supports transactional and strategic legal functions across Contexture's HIE, public health, social determinants of health, and other business lines. This role requires excellent collaboration skills, attention to detail, the ability to simplify complex legal issues, a growth mindset, and a proactive, solution-oriented approach.

This position is based in Phoenix Arizona, Denver or Grand Junction Colorado. Our strategic flexibility allows for local work from home opportunities.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following:

Legal Support and Advice

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  Providing legal advice to Contexture personnel on a wide range of legal issues, including compliance with HIPAA, the Part 2 regulations, and other federal and state privacy laws and regulations; security incidents and potential data breaches; proposed federal and state legislation and regulations; mergers and acquisitions; responses to subpoenas and other requests for patient information; nonprofit corporate governance; intellectual property; and employment law.
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  Interpreting complex healthcare regulations and statutes, and applying them to business and transactional matters, including business line operations and corporate affiliations.

Contract Drafting and Negotiation

• Drafting, reviewing, and negotiating of a wide range of documents and agreements, including customer agreements, business associate agreements, SaaS agreements, licensing agreements, vendor agreements, facility agreements, lease agreements, services agreements, and agreements related to corporate affiliations and other business arrangements.
• Managing contracts with participants/customers (e.g. healthcare providers, health plans, accountable care organizations), government agencies, and vendors.
• Responding to internal requests for legal advice relating to contracts.
• Providing oversight and guidance regarding the use of the Contracts Lifecycle Management (CLM) system.

Risk Assessment, Policy Development, and Compliance

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  Identifying and analyzing legal issues, presenting clear recommendations, and mitigating legal risks.
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  Drafting and updating internal and external policies and procedures, including those relating to HIE access, HIE data use, patient rights, privacy, information security, contract review and approval, and compliance.
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  Managing comprehensive compliance and privacy programs that span multiple business lines.
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  Implementing and monitoring controls that ensure compliance with federal and state privacy, data protection, and healthcare laws such as HIPAA, Part 2, the Colorado Privacy Act, and the Arizona Health Information Organization law.
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  Providing education and training to Contexture teams regarding legal and compliance issues.
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  Handling or providing legal guidance relating to potential privacy and security incidents.

Other Legal Functions:

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  Providing legal guidance related to tax, insurance, employment, and nonprofit corporate governance matters.
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  Monitoring developments in applicable laws and regulations and providing practical guidance regarding those developments to Contexture's teams.
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  Overseeing the work of outside attorneys.
• Performs other related duties as assigned.

Qualifications

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Skills

• Ability to clearly explain complex legal concepts to non-lawyers, with concise and effective communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Broad legal knowledge in contracts, regulatory issues, corporate law, and nonprofit governance, preferably with healthcare experience.
• A "yes, and" attitude: Not only identifying potential legal issues and risks, but also proposing solutions to help accomplish the underlying business objectives.
• Ability to collaboratively lead teams, prioritize work, and manage multiple tasks.
• Ability to work independently with minimal supervision, and also to work cooperatively with others and maintain strong working relationships.
• Intellectual curiosity and an interest in learning about Contexture's services and the many federal and state laws and regulations that apply to the organization.
• Experience with Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) systems generally, and preferably with the DocuSign CLM platform.
• Ability to perform legal research and analysis of complex and/or novel legal issues
• Familiarity with Microsoft Office programs. Experience with Word, PowerPoint, and Excel is required. Experience with SharePoint, OneDrive, Visio, and Project is preferred.

Required Education and Experience

Minimum of 5+ years of experience practicing law. Law degree from an ABA-accredited law school. Active license to practice law in Arizona or Colorado. Experience with healthcare-specific contracts and regulatory requirements. Experience working in or with healthcare entities, government agencies, higher education institutions, or nonprofit organizations is preferred.

Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) certification preferred. HIPAA experience strongly preferred.

Work Environment

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate.

The position may require occasional availability for after-hours work, outside of regularly scheduled hours.

The position may require periodically driving to and from clients, conferences and/or events; and/or limited travel.

This position is expected to be exposed to, process, or handle sensitive information including but not limited to Protected Health Information (PHI), Personally Identifiable Information (PII), financial information, etc. As such, the holder of this position is expected to comply with all applicable laws, regulations, organizational policies, and compliance expectations.

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. The person in this position needs to frequently communicate and exchange information and move about inside the office to access file cabinets, office machinery, etc. Must be able to remain in a stationary position 50% of the time. Constantly operates a computer and other office productivity machinery, such as a keyboard, monitor, calculator, copy / scanner machine, and printer. Frequently moves office and work-related material weighing up to 10 pounds; Occasionally moves office and work-related material weighing up to 30 pounds.

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions.

Note: This job description is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities and / or qualifications associated with the job.

Benefits: Contexture provides a comprehensive benefits package. For details, please request a Benefit Summary from our Benefits Department.

The organization is an inclusive Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, or other status protected by law or regulation.