Employment Counsel

Beacon Software; Toronto; On-site; CAD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Beacon Software is seeking an experienced employment lawyer to build and lead its employment function from the ground up. You will partner with HR to create templates, policies, and processes for Beacon and its portfolio of companies, handling terminations, claims, and compliance across jurisdictions.

You will advise on due diligence in M&A, draft robust agreements, and implement scalable AI-enabled workflows to drive efficiency.

Qualifications

• J.D. or LL.B. from a Canadian law school; licensed in good standing with the Law Society of Ontario.
• 6+ years of employment law at a top-tier firm, or 5–7 years in-house at tech/growth companies.
• Solid expertise in Ontario Employment Standards Act, Human Rights Code, OHSA, and common law.
• Proven ability to manage terminations and draft separation agreements.
• Experience handling employment claims, MO Labour complaints, and disputes.
• Strong drafting of employment agreements, HR policies, handbooks, and templates.
• Excellent partnering with HR/People teams; adept with AI-enabled legal workflows.

Responsibilities

• Own the build-out of Beacon’s employment law function from the ground up.
• Partner with HR to develop policies, onboarding/offboarding docs, and templates.
• Support portfolio companies with employment guidance across jurisdictions.
• Lead terminations/separations, severance planning, and related agreements.
• Manage employment claims and coordinate with external counsel when needed.
• Create playbooks, precedents, and checklists for consistent practice.
• Ensure regulatory compliance across federal/provincial regimes; advise on M&A diligence.

Skills

Employment law

HR partnerships

Policy development

Terminations

Litigation management

AI in legal

Education

J.D./LL.B. (Canada)

Tools

AI tools for legal

Job description

Beacon is building the essential technology infrastructure for the everyday economy: the businesses, organizations, and services that make real life work, and that mainstream tech has largely left behind. We acquire, operate, and grow vertical market software and services companies: niche, founder-built businesses serving industries that are too specific for the enterprise giants and too profitable to ignore. Our model is simple. We buy great businesses, invest in their continued growth, and hold them permanently. We are not a financial firm. We are technology entrepreneurs and operators who believe the most important businesses in the world are already running quietly in industries most people never think about. Our job is to find them, support the people who built them, and make them better. We seek out founders who have built their business by spending years understanding their market and prioritizing their customers' specific needs. Our flexible structure offers entrepreneurs a unique option to implement a transition that ensures the continuity of the company while receiving liquidity at full value for their equity in their business. No mandate to cut, flip, or roll up into something unrecognizable. We are permanent, committed capital with no exit pressure and a long-term time horizon, backed by a diverse base of investors including Wall Street (D1 Capital, CPMG), Silicon Valley (General Catalyst and Lightspeed), the family offices of world-class technology entrepreneurs (including the founders of Stripe, DoorDash, and Ramp), and evergreen funds built for the long game (Sator Grove).

Beacon was founded by Nilam Ganenthiran, entrepreneur, former President of Instacart, and investor at D1 Capital, who has spent his career building, scaling, and backing high-growth technology businesses.

About the Role

We are seeking a highly skilled and entrepreneurially-minded employment lawyer to join Beacon’s legal team as our first dedicated employment specialist. This is a foundational role — you will build Beacon’s employment legal function from the ground up, partnering closely with HR to establish the policies, templates, and processes that will underpin how Beacon and its portfolio companies operate as employers. Reporting to Beacon’s VP, Legal, you will serve as the go-to employment law resource across the organization, advising on the full spectrum of employment matters: from day-to-day questions arising across our growing portfolio to managing complex terminations, navigating employment claims and litigation, and building out the scalable infrastructure that a permanent-hold, multi-entity acquirer needs. This is a high-impact, high-autonomy role for a lawyer who thrives on building, is energized by variety, and wants to own an entire function rather than execute within one.

What You'll Do

• Employment Function Builder: Own the build-out of Beacon’s employment legal function. This means establishing the infrastructure from scratch: designing the governance model, setting employment law coverage across Beacon and its portfolio, and creating the workflows and escalation protocols that allow the business to operate at scale. You will be the single point of accountability for employment law across the organization and will define what that function looks like.
• HR Partnership and Policy Development: Work hand-in-hand with Beacon’s HR team to build the foundational building blocks of the employment relationship — employment agreements, offer letter templates, onboarding and offboarding documentation, HR policies, employee handbooks, and codes of conduct. Ensure all policies and practices are legally compliant, commercially sensible, and scalable across a multi-entity, multi-jurisdiction organization. Partner with HR on sensitive people matters, providing real-time legal guidance that balances risk management with practical business outcomes.
• Portfolio Employment Support: Serve as the employment law resource for Beacon’s portfolio of vertical market software companies. Field and resolve the full range of employment questions that arise across the portfolio—compensation and benefits, workplace accommodation, leaves of absence, performance management, misconduct investigations, and more. Develop repeatable frameworks and toolkits that allow portfolio company operators to handle routine matters confidently while knowing when to escape.
• Terminations and Separations: Manage and advise on all aspects of employee terminations and separations across Beacon and its portfolio, including without-cause terminations, performance-based dismissals, restructurings, and mutual separations. Draft and negotiate separation agreements and releases. Advise on appropriate severance entitlements under applicable employment standards and common law, minimizing legal exposure while achieving business objectives. Provide practical, real-time guidance to HR and management on how to conduct terminations appropriately.
• Employment Claims and Litigation Management: Own the management of employment-related claims and disputes, including human rights complaints, wrongful dismissal claims, constructive dismissal claims, and regulatory complaints before the Ministry of Labour or equivalent bodies. Where external counsel is engaged, act as the primary internal contact, managing the relationship, providing instructions, and ensuring alignment with Beacon’s objectives and budget. Maintain a working knowledge of active matters and provide regular updates to leadership.
• Templates, Precedents, and Playbooks: Build and maintain a library of employment law templates, precedents, and playbooks that can be leveraged across Beacon and its portfolio. This includes offer letters and employment agreements (standard and executive), termination letters, severance templates, separation agreements, performance improvement plan frameworks, investigation protocols, and employment standards compliance checklists. Your templates should reduce legal cost, increase speed, and ensure consistency across the organization.
• Regulatory Compliance and Employment Standards: Monitor and manage ongoing compliance with employment standards legislation, pay equity, accessibility, workplace health and safety, and other applicable regulatory requirements across federal and provincial jurisdictions. Advise on the employment law implications of M&A transactions — including employment due diligence during the acquisition process — and manage employment-related post-closing integration matters.
• AI-Powered Legal Operations: Leverage AI tools and technology to accelerate document drafting, policy review, legal research, and claims management. Continuously identify opportunities to build AI-assisted workflows that increase efficiency and reduce cost across the employment function.

Who You Are

• J.D. or LL.B. from an accredited Canadian law school; member in good standing of the Law Society of Ontario.

• 6+ years of employment law experience at a top-tier law firm, or 5–7 years in an in‑house employment counsel role at a technology company or high-growth organization — ideally with experience on both sides.

• Deep, hands‑on expertise in Canadian employment law, including the Employment Standards Act (Ontario), Human Rights Code, Occupational Health and Safety Act, and common law obligations. Familiarity with federal employment legislation (Canada Labour Code) is a strong asset.

• Proven experience managing terminations and drafting separation agreements, including experience advising on appropriate severance entitlements and negotiating resolutions.

• Experience managing employment claims and disputes, including responding to Ministry of Labour complaints, human rights applications, and wrongful/constructive dismissal actions.

• Demonstrated ability to draft and maintain employment agreements, HR policies, employee handbooks, and employment templates from scratch or from precedent.

• Strong track record of partnering directly with HR and People teams as a business-oriented, solutions-focused legal partner — not just a gatekeeper.

• Highly proficient with AI tools for legal work (e.g., AI-assisted document drafting, legal research, policy review). A genuine enthusiasm for integrating AI into day-to-day legal practice is essential.

• Comfortable operating as a generalist employment lawyer, capable of handling a wide range of matters simultaneously across multiple entities and jurisdictions.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate complex legal concepts into clear, actionable guidance for non-legal business partners.

• Experience in M&A employment diligence and integration is a strong asset.

Our Values at Beacon Software

• Humility: We acknowledge that the path to getting to the right answer involves being wrong along the way. We have strong beliefs which are weakly held. We actively seek new ideas and believe we can learn from anyone at any time.

• Honesty: We are truth seeking in our approach to business problems. Business is a repeat game and we believe that human relationships generate alpha. We understand that trust is earned over a lifetime and can be lost in an instant.

• Hunger: We play to win. We hold ourselves to high standards and will not be outworked. We take pride in having a deep sense of responsibility to ourselves, each other, our partners, and our customers. We believe to whom much is given much is expected.

• Horizon: We seek to build a generational software company. This will take decades. We manage our expectations and those of our partners to take advantage of the 8th wonder of the world - compounding growth.

How We Use AI in Our Hiring Process: To ensure transparency, we want candidates to know that Beacon Software uses Artificial Intelligence and AI-enabled tools to assist with screening, reviewing, organizing and highlighting profiles and applications that match the key requirements for each role.

AI does not make hiring decisions: Every application is reviewed by a member of our team, and all decisions throughout the process are made by humans. We use AI to support efficiency and consistency, not to replace human judgment. We are committed to a fair, thoughtful, and equitable experience for every candidate.