Counsel, Business and Legal Affairs, Consumer Products

Job Description

ViacomCBS Consumer Products (VCP) oversees all licensing and merchandising for ViacomCBS Inc. Driven by iconic consumer brands, VCP's portfolio includes a diverse slate of brands and content from BET, CBS (including CBS Television Studios and CBS Television Distribution), Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures and Showtime. With properties spanning animation, live-action, preschool, youth and adult, VCP is committed to creating the highest quality product for some of the world's most beloved, iconic franchises. Additionally, VCP oversees the online direct-to-consumer business for CBS and Showtime programming merchandise, as well as standalone branded ecommerce websites for Star Trek, SpongeBob, South Park, and MTV.

We have an exciting opportunity to join the Business and Legal Affairs department at ViacomCBS. The Counsel position will be an integral member of a team that provides day-to-day business and legal affairs services in connection with licensing, marketing, promotions, and other matters for the ViacomCBS Consumer Products Group. This person will drive and close a variety of transactions, including a high volume of intellectual property licenses of ViacomCBS properties, characters, and brands for use across a broad spectrum of consumer products; collaborations with well-known designers and specialty brands; and partnerships with retailers. The Counsel will also advise the business groups on a wide variety of day-to-day legal and business issues and support across related ancillary rights matters. In addition, the position will work on a variety of related initiatives in support of the business, and projects focused on assessing and improving legal and business efficiencies.

Responsibilities:
• Structure, draft, and negotiate intellectual property license agreements for the consumer products business in a wide array of categories, including toys, apparel, publishing, direct-to-retail, promotions, and consumer packaged goods.
• Structure, draft, and negotiate agreements related to the marketing and promotion of ViacomCBS's brands, as well as a variety of ancillary agreements and documentation to support the business, including but not limited to license agreements, amendments, audit settlement agreements, confidentiality agreements, and services/vendor agreements.
• Liaise with global CP franchise management team to facilitate implementation of various strategic initiatives.
• Develop and maintain form templates.
• Provide practical, strategic and actionable advice and counsel to business clients regarding key issues, risk allocation, and legal implications of proposed business opportunities and actions.
• Cultivate and maintain channels of communication with key ViacomCBS Legal and Business Affairs personnel in technical areas including rights and clearances, music strategy, risk management, trademarks, unions and guilds, bankruptcy, privacy, standards & practices, and litigation.
• Coordinate with internal business teams (e.g., CP account executives, finance, systems, and operations teams) to determine business priorities and deal points.

Qualifications:
• Licensed to practice law in the state of NY or qualified to promptly register as in-house counsel.
• At least 5 years of transferable legal experience (ideally with a major media or entertainment company and/or law firm). Must have experience managing transactional matters and dealing directly with clients.

Additional Qualifications:
• Comprehensive knowledge of contract law and intellectual property law, as well as a mastered capability for legal analysis and reasoning.
• Excellent drafting and negotiating skills, with experience drafting and negotiating intellectual property license agreements (ideally in the consumer products industry) and managing complicated exclusive rights arrangements. Experience with e-commerce a plus.
• Outstanding communication (written and oral), interpersonal, and organizational skills, with strong attention to detail.
• Ability to build strong internal client relationships at all levels of the business, and effectively advise clients under conditions of uncertainty, high-pressure and/or high-risk and generate strong client satisfaction through quick turnaround and firm decision-making.
• Excellent project/team management skills, common sense, and business judgment.
• Proficiency at multi-tasking under pressure, managing and prioritizing a varied, high-volume workload efficiently and accurately, and operating autonomously within corporate parameters. Excellent time management skills.
• Ability to understand numbers in business/financial context.
• Ability to adapt legal work to a changing media and retail landscape.
• The ideal candidate will be collaborative, positive, and team oriented.
• A sense of humor is a plus.

ViacomCBS is an equal opportunity employer (EOE) including disability/vet.

ViacomCBS believes in creating environments that allow our primary focus to remain on providing entertainment, education and information to our millions of viewers around the world. As part of this commitment to health and safety, ViacomCBS requires COVID-19 vaccines for current US employees, including all newly hired employees, subject to applicable law. Union employees are subject to what is outlined in their applicable collective bargaining agreement.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-g4oy7y-18-119-107-96-42 in your application.