In-House Counsel – Litigation & Employment

In-House Counsel – Litigation & Employment
Location: Texas – Remote / Houston Preferred
Employment: Full-Time
License: Active Texas Bar License Required
About the Role
We are seeking a hands-on In-House Counsel – Litigation & Employment to help manage the company's day-to-day disputes, litigation, arbitration, employment matters, and general commercial legal needs.
This is an execution-focused legal role. The attorney will be expected to personally manage routine legal matters rather than automatically referring them to outside counsel. The position will take ownership of a portfolio of active disputes while also supporting management and HR on employment matters and handling routine commercial contracts.
Outside counsel will remain available for major trials, highly specialized matters, significant regulatory issues, and matters requiring additional resources. A primary objective of this position is to efficiently resolve legal matters internally and strategically manage outside counsel when required.
Responsibilities
Litigation & Arbitration
Manage a portfolio of active commercial disputes, litigation, and arbitrations.
Handle matters from initial demand through resolution, including drafting pleadings, answers, motions, discovery, correspondence, settlement agreements, and other filings.
Manage arbitration proceedings, including procedural conferences, discovery, motion practice, evidentiary preparation, and hearings.
Take and defend depositions when appropriate.
Represent the company at hearings, mediations, settlement conferences, and other proceedings.
Handle demand letters, cease-and-desist letters, pre-litigation negotiations, and responses to threatened claims.
Evaluate claims, defenses, exposure, litigation strategy, and potential resolution.
Manage discovery, document collection, preservation obligations, litigation holds, and production.
Develop case strategy directly with company leadership.
Maintain deadlines, case calendars, budgets, and status reporting across the company's dispute portfolio.
Negotiate settlements and draft settlement and release agreements.
Employment Matters
Advise management and HR regarding routine employment disputes and employee-relations matters.
Handle disputes involving former and current employees and independent contractors.
Assist with terminations, disciplinary matters, compensation and commission disputes, confidentiality obligations, restrictive covenants, and related issues.
Draft and respond to employment-related demand letters.
Review and draft employment agreements, independent-contractor agreements, separation agreements, releases, confidentiality agreements, and related documents.
Assist management with reducing employment-related legal risk before disputes arise.
Coordinate with specialized employment counsel when necessary.
Contracts & General Legal
Draft, review, and negotiate routine commercial agreements.
Handle NDAs, vendor agreements, consulting agreements, service agreements, releases, and other ordinary-course contracts.
Interpret contractual obligations and advise management regarding potential breaches and remedies.
Assist with contract enforcement and collection-related disputes.
Provide practical legal guidance to management on day-to-day business issues.
Develop templates and standardized legal processes to improve efficiency.
Outside Counsel Management
Determine which matters can be handled internally and which require specialized outside counsel.
Serve as the company's primary point of contact with litigation counsel.
Define and control the scope of work assigned externally.
Review outside-counsel strategy, staffing, invoices, and budgets.
Perform internal research, discovery, document preparation, and case management where practical rather than duplicating work through outside firms.
Coordinate specialists for complex litigation, trials, regulatory matters, or other areas outside the attorney's expertise.
Qualifications
Degree from an accredited U.S. law school.
Active and in-good-standing Texas Bar license required.
Approximately 3+ years of litigation experience preferred.
Meaningful hands-on experience managing litigation or arbitration matters.
Strong legal research and writing skills.
Experience drafting pleadings, motions, discovery, demand letters, and settlement agreements.
Experience participating in depositions, hearings, mediations, or arbitrations.
Ability to independently manage multiple active matters and deadlines.
Commercial litigation experience strongly preferred.
Employment litigation or employment-law experience preferred.
Experience reviewing and drafting commercial contracts preferred.
In-house experience is helpful but not required.
Ideal Candidate
The ideal candidate is a practicing litigator who is comfortable taking direct ownership of matters.
We are particularly interested in attorneys coming from small or mid-sized litigation practices where they have personally managed cases rather than working on only one component of a larger litigation team.
The successful candidate should be comfortable moving between an active arbitration, an employment issue, a demand letter, and a commercial contract during the same day.
We value practical judgment, responsiveness, organization, strong written advocacy, and the ability to resolve matters efficiently.
What Success Looks Like
The attorney will become the company's primary internal resource for routine disputes and legal matters. Success will be measured by effective management of the company's litigation portfolio, timely resolution of disputes, strong support for management and HR, disciplined use of outside counsel, and the ability to bring a meaningful portion of routine legal work in-house.
Why Post Oak Group
Post Oak Group is a Houston-based investment bank serving founder-led and privately held businesses across the United States and internationally. The firm provides M&A advisory and capital advisory services to companies navigating significant transactions and periods of growth. Our team brings together investment banking professionals, advisors, and specialists across a global footprint, combining institutional transaction experience with an entrepreneurial and execution-focused approach.

Work arrangement
Yes