Corporate Counsel & Landlord-Tenant Attorney in Commack, New York at Heatherwood

Position Overview

We are seeking a high-impact Corporate Counsel & Litigation Manager to join our in-house legal department to lead, modernize, and scale our landlord-tenant legal operations across a diverse multifamily portfolio. This is a role for a courtroom-tested litigator who is equally energized by legal operations, workflow engineering, technology adoption, and portfolio-level analytics.

You will have full authority to design and enforce new legal workflows, leverage existing and emerging software, including Yardi to its fullest capabilities, and build a data-driven legal ecosystem that aligns with institutional standards seen in NAA-benchmarked operators.

The ideal candidate will have 5 -7 years of experience with extensive court appearances and hands-on litigation management, including New York landlord-tenant proceedings. The successful candidate will work closely with property management, asset management, operations, and outside counsel to protect the Company’s legal and business interests while providing practical, business-oriented advice.

Key Responsibilities

Courtroom Litigation & Case Management

• Litigate nonpayment, holdover, nuisance, order-to-show-cause, and bankruptcy-impacted matters across landlord-tenant courts.
• Manage all phases of the eviction lifecycle, including notices, petitions, motions, stipulations, and warrant execution.
• Ensure cases move efficiently from filing to resolution.
• Negotiate settlements and resolutions designed to minimize risk and litigation costs.
• Develop litigation strategies that reduce cycle time and improve resolution outcomes.
• Identify litigation trends and develop proactive legal strategies.

Legal Operations Modernization

• Overhaul and scale all playbooks, notice libraries, escalation protocols, and default-resolution frameworks.
• Implement standardized, enforceable workflows across property management, legal, and operations teams.
• Drive a culture of operational discipline and compliance with statutory timelines.
• Develop and train support staff on legal operations modernization and technology initiatives.

Technology, Automation & Yardi Integration

• Leverage Yardi Voyager Legal to automate notice workflows, track statutory timelines, and audit tenant ledgers.
• Partner with internal teams to enhance data governance, accuracy, and reporting integrity.
• Identify opportunities for automation, dashboarding, and workflow triggers to reduce manual work and error rates.

Institutional-Grade Metrics & Reporting

You will build and own a legal performance dashboard, including:

• Days-to-Resolution and cycle time by case type
• Legal Aging Buckets and portfolio legal exposure
• Notice Accuracy & SLA Compliance
• Ledger Audit Accuracy
• Eviction Filing Rate per 100 Units
• Outside Counsel Spend vs. Budget
• Bad Debt Recovery & Write-Off Rates

You will present these metrics directly to executive leadership and influence portfolio-level strategy.

Outside Counsel Oversight & Budget Discipline

• Manage outside counsel with a focus on budget discipline, performance tracking, and adherence to company workflows.
• Establish expectations for reporting, timelines, and outcome metrics.
• Ensure external firms operate as extensions of the in-house legal department—not independent silos.
• Audit outside counsel spend and identify cost trends and savings opportunities.

Cross-Functional Leadership & Influence

• Collaborate with property management, operations, finance, and compliance to enforce legal workflows.
• Serve as the subject-matter expert on L&T law, statutory timelines, and risk mitigation.
• Lead training initiatives to elevate legal literacy across the organization.

Department Growth & Strategic Impact

• Leverage existing paralegal support and help shape future team expansion.
• Contribute to long-term legal department design, including potential roles in compliance, risk, and broader litigation.
• Play a key role in aligning legal operations with portfolio growth and corporate strategy.

Required Qualifications

• 5 - 7 years of active, high-volume landlord-tenant litigation experience in New York.
• JD and active NYS Bar admission in good standing.
• Demonstrated expertise in OSCs, nuisance litigation, and bankruptcy stay navigation.
• Hands-on experience with Yardi, including legal workflows and ledger auditing.
• Strong analytical skills and comfort presenting data to senior executives.
• Proven ability to design and enforce process-driven systems.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with institutional owners, or large multifamily operators.
• Exposure to legal operations, process engineering, or workflow automation.
• Familiarity with operational benchmarks and industry best practices.
• Experience building dashboards or working with analytics tools.

Who Thrives in This Role

• A courtroom tactician with a systems-builder mindset
• Tech-forward, data-driven, and energized by modernization
• Comfortable enforcing discipline across departments
• Ready to step out of the billable-hour grind and into a leadership trajectory
• Motivated by the opportunity to build a best-in-class legal department