Description:
- Ag & Business Legal Strategies (ABLS) is a small but rapidly growing law firm located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. By leveraging a highly entrepreneurial culture with cutting edge technology, the firm is able to help farmers get creditors off their backs, preserve assets, and minimize taxes like no other law firm in the country. The specialized expertise that defines this firm has landed the owner in venues from Congress (championing changes to how the bankruptcy code impacts taxes owed by “right-sizing” farmers, as well as the proper locations for businesses to file their reorganization cases – close to the customers they serve) to the United States Supreme Court, to appearances on various radio programs popular within the farming community across the Midwest. The owner is a frequent presenter at legal education seminars and ag financial industry training seminars.
- The Senior Associate Attorney position is a high-level position within the firm with a reporting relationship directly to the owner of the firm. The primary responsibility of a Senior Associate Attorney is to handle all aspects of a client’s case including communicating with clients, accountants, creditors, and other counsel; evaluate the overall financial, tax and legal position of the client; assist client in determining realistic goals, then designing a strategy to be executed to meet those goals; participate in negotiations to resolve debt issues; draft pleadings, conduct discovery, prepare for and attend court hearings, conferences, and prepare for and attend trials. Most matters are resolved through negotiations with multiple creditors instead of through litigation. Though the Senior Associate’s caseload is determined by the owner, the Senior Associate should always look to relieve the owner of cases to allow the owner to focus on the big picture goals and vision for the firm.
- Maintaining consistent and timely communications with the client, accountants, creditors and other counsel about all key developments of the case.
- Collaborating with the client, owner, accountant, and the Chief Financial Strategist on the likely outcome for creditors both with and without restructuring negotiations.
- Participating in complex negotiations with creditors of clients seeking an out of court resolution of the client’s financial and tax problems.
- Conducting legal research, drafting pleadings, conducting discovery, preparing for and attending court hearings, conferences, and preparing for and attending trials.
- Submitting relevant work, expenses, and time entries to get all invoices to clients in a timely manner and following up as required to ensure all fees owed are collected timely and Evergreen Retainers are promptly replenished.
- Work with the owner of the firm, its professional legal administrator and/or Chief Operating Officer, as relevant, to refine and optimize the firm’s policies and procedures that are relevant to any workflows within the Senior Associate Attorney’s area of responsibility.
- Train subordinate staff (e.g. paralegals, legal secretaries, et. al.) on the firm’s policies and procedures, and audit compliance with the same as appropriate.
- Cultivate expert familiarity with the firm’s law practice management software and other technological systems to leverage the power of these tools to enhance efficiency, transparency, and constancy of the firm’s work product throughout all assigned cases.
- At a minimum, the Senior Associate Attorney must have a law degree from an accredited law school and be licensed in the state of Iowa or have the ability to be licensed in the state of Iowa within a reasonably short period of time. Attorneys licensed in the state of Illinois are encouraged to apply.
- At a minimum, the Senior Associate Attorney must have at least five years of practice experience, which can include a judicial clerkship. An ideal candidate will have over seven years of experience in at least two of the subject areas outlined below.
- An ideal candidate will have subject matter expertise in the following three areas, listed in order of importance:
- Income Tax.
- Knowledge and familiarity with the agricultural industry.
- Bankruptcy & Commercial Law.
- An ideal candidate will possess the following core technical skills, listed in order of importance to this role:
- Negotiation practice.
- Understanding of how income taxes affect businesses struggling to survive and considering partial of complete liquidation.
- Ability to evaluate probable outcomes in bankruptcy scenarios.
- Ability to determine the priority of liens on real and personal property.