Chief Compliance Officer - PE backed Legal MSO

**Position:** Chief Compliance Officer **Reports To:** Chief Executive Officer; dotted\-line to the Board of Directors (including lead PE sponsor) **Location:** United States — Fully Remote (Central or Eastern time preferred; East Coast metros a plus) **Travel:** Monthly in\-person executive team meetings and 1–2 trips per month to acquired\-firm locations to install controls, train staff, and sustain the compliance rhythm across the portfolio. Chamberlain Advisors is conducting an executive search for our direct client, a private\-equity\-backed Management Services Organization (MSO), building a nationally scaling personal\-injury law roll\-up. As Founding Chief Compliance Officer, reporting to the CEO with direct board accountability, you will architect the regulatory, governance, and compliance infrastructure for a first\-generation MSO integrating acquired law firms across multiple jurisdictions — owning multi\-state professional\-responsibility risk, MSA defensibility, swim\-lane discipline, post\-acquisition integration, and the live regulatory surveillance function that keeps the executive team and Board ahead of material change. This is a zero\-to\-one mandate: you will build the program, not administer an inherited one. **Core Profile: alignment with the following is required to get you in the conversation** * Multi\-Jurisdictional Regulatory Surveillance \& First\-Principles Judgment: You will serve as the platform's real\-time pulse on the evolving regulatory landscape across multiple jurisdictions — state bar associations, state legislation, ABA Model Rules and commentary, and federal agency activity with MSO implications — ensuring that the CEO, executive team, and Board never learn of a material development from an external source. This is not a digest function. You will reason from first principles on ABA Model Rule 5\.4, state\-specific CPOM analogs, Texas Ethics Opinion 706 and comparable precedents, emerging Arizona ABS and Utah sandbox guidance, and state\-level advertising and solicitation rules, and for every question that lands on your desk you will present a recommendation — not a list of options — and defend that recommendation to the people whose commercial interests it may complicate. * MSO Governance Architecture \& Swim\-Lane Discipline: You will design, document, and maintain the authoritative written task matrix delineating what the MSO may do, what the affiliated law firms must retain as the exclusive province of professional legal judgment, and how the boundary is monitored in practice. You will own the MSO's governance apparatus: delegation\-of\-authority framework, sign\-off matrix by decision category, dual\-sign\-off controls on audit\-sensitive functions including intercompany cash movement, audit calendar, and the executive team's weekly governance rhythm. You will be equally credible in a sponsor\-level board briefing and in a direct conversation with an acquired\-firm owner whose behavior needs to change. The decision\-making hierarchy of the MSO will sit in your hands. * Post\-Close Compliance Integration \& Firm\-Level Controls: You will build, implement, and enforce the repeatable compliance integration playbook deployed at every acquisition: pre\-close compliance due diligence, review and enforcement of compliance\-sensitive transaction documents and Management Service Agreements (with purchase\-agreement mechanics remaining with third\-party counsel), thirty\-to\-ninety\-day controls deployment, onboarding training for partner\-firm staff, and a sustained monthly monitoring rhythm. You will install the visibility and monitoring framework required to detect individual\-level compliance breakdowns at acquired firms before they escalate into bar\-level or reputational events, and you will enforce boundary discipline directly with acquired\-firm owners when their asks would pull MSO staff across the professional\-responsibility line. * Commercially Grounded Bi\-Directional Enforcement: You will operate with the disposition of a committed compliance professional who speaks the language of the business and proposes a path with every restriction. You will work cross\-functionally across teams — finance, operations, M\&A, and legal — and flag reputational and regulatory risk in terms the executive team can act on, and when the answer is “no,” you will articulate the conditions under which it could become “yes.” You will push back upward — to the CEO, the sponsor, and the Board — when commercial pace outruns control maturity, and you will push back equally at acquired\-firm partners who need to revise behavior. You will carry the adult\-in\-the\-room credibility the platform needs when limited partners, lenders, and investment committees ask how much conviction the business has in its MSO structure. * Zero\-to\-One Build in a Values\-First Executive Environment: You will build a founding compliance and governance function as a scale\-of\-one operator on an entrepreneurial executive team, partnering closely with the founder\-CEO and the sponsor\-led Board. You will be genuinely energized by the authority and ambiguity of a first\-generation build — though not from a blank page; you will be supported by retained outside ethics counsel and subject\-matter advisors, with your role being to translate that guidance into operating reality rather than to interpret case law in isolation. You will be credible in equal measure translating regulatory architecture to an institutional board and translating MSA discipline to a non\-lawyer case manager at a newly acquired firm. This is not a seat for administrators of mature twenty\-person compliance organizations, nor for stereotypical PE\-coded operator archetypes. It is a seat for a compliance leader whose operating DNA is building from zero in a service\-oriented, low\-ego, high\-pace culture. **Core Responsibilities \& Scope of Work:** **Regulatory Surveillance \& Strategic Guidance** * Live Monitoring Cadence: Maintain a weekly\-to\-daily pulse on state bar positions, legislative activity, ABA guidance, and federal agency actions affecting PI\-law MSO viability across multiple jurisdictions; deliver structured briefings to the executive team and the Board on a pre\-established cadence. * First\-Principles Recommendations: Reason from ABA Model Rule 5\.4, state CPOM analogs, Texas Ethics Opinion 706\-class precedents, and state\-specific advertising and solicitation rules to produce defensible regulatory positions; accompany every analysis with a recommended course of action. * Jurisdictional Strategy: Surface deal\-relevant regulatory risk to the executive team and sponsor ahead of transaction execution; maintain the platform's list of PE\-friendly target jurisdictions and restricted jurisdictions; revise the posture in response to enacted change. * External Counsel Orchestration: Manage the platform's ethics\-counsel relationships across jurisdictions, translating outside\-counsel opinions into deployable operating frameworks for the executive team and affiliated firms; retain outside firms and per\-firm counsel in their primary roles on ethics opinions and transactional work. **MSO Governance \& Controls Architecture** * Swim\-Lane Documentation: Author and maintain the written task matrix enumerating, for each jurisdiction, the activities reserved to professional legal judgment versus those the MSO may perform; establish the ongoing monitoring regime that enforces the boundary. * Delegation\-of\-Authority Framework: Establish the decision\-category sign\-off matrix that defines which roles have authority to commit the MSO across finance, operations, compliance, and professional\-responsibility domains. * Dual\-Sign\-Off Controls: Operate architectural checks on audit\-sensitive functions — including MSO\-to\-law\-firm intercompany cash movement — independent of trust in any individual roleholder. Finance ownership remains with the CFO; compliance architecture around movement governance sits with this seat. * Audit Calendar \& Weekly Rhythm: Run the platform's recurring audit program covering MSO\-side process adherence and firm\-side swim\-lane compliance; chair the executive team's compliance and governance rhythm and set the forward agenda on risk\-surfacing matters. * Corporate Secretary–Adjacent Functions: Maintain the organizational artifacts required to demonstrate defensible governance to regulators, LPs, lenders, and potential acquirers — board minutes, policy library, decisions log, and delegation artifacts. **M\&A Compliance Integration** * Pre\-Close Diligence: Lead compliance due diligence on target firms — bar\-discipline history, advertising exposure, trust\-account integrity, marketing\-and\-intake practices, referral\-fee arrangements, and individual\-practitioner risk. * Compliance\-Sensitive Document Review: Review Management Service Agreements and compliance\-sensitive ancillary agreements (typically seven\-to\-twenty pages per transaction) for structural and professional\-responsibility defensibility; leave purchase\-agreement mechanics to transaction counsel. * Post\-Close Integration Playbook: Operate a repeatable thirty\-to\-ninety\-day post\-close compliance integration program — onboarding education, controls deployment, template\-import risk management, and workflow\-level training for acquired\-firm staff across approximately three\-to\-five platform transactions per year plus tuck\-ins. * Firm\-Owner Behavior Management: When acquired\-firm partners initiate asks that would require MSO non\-lawyer staff to cross professional\-responsibility lines, intervene directly and install the controls required to prevent recurrence. **Enterprise Compliance Program** * Program Elements: Build and sustain the core compliance program — Code of Conduct, policies and procedures library, enterprise risk assessment, training and education, reporting channels and whistleblower protections, monitoring and auditing, investigations and corrective action, and third\-party risk management — at a scale appropriate to the platform's current and projected size. * Advertising \& Solicitation Governance: Establish the state\-by\-state advertising\-compliance framework — with Florida as the initial model — operating on a high\-fidelity baseline with per\-state deltas architecture. * HIPAA, Client\-Data \& Cybersecurity Governance: Own the client\-data\-protection and cybersecurity policy framework covering intake call data, medical\-record handling, case\-outcome reporting, and PHI at the firms and MSO; partner with the technology function on implementing controls and confirm the platform carries appropriate cyber\-liability insurance. * Trust Account \& IOLTA Controls: Establish the platform's expectations for affiliated\-firm IOLTA and client\-funds handling and integrate these into the monitoring program. * Referral \& Fee\-Sharing Governance: Establish and monitor the platform's posture on referral relationships, fee\-sharing disclosures, and solicitation practices consistent with ABA Model Rules 5\.4 and 7\-series and their state\-specific implementations. **Executive Team, Board, and LP Engagement** * Board Reporting: Deliver compliance reporting to the CEO and Board (including PE sponsor representatives) on a pre\-established cadence; take direct questions from directors on a dotted\-line basis. * Institutional\-Quality Narrative: Author the professional\-responsibility narrative delivered to limited partners, lenders, and investment committees on the platform's structural conviction; provide the credible third\-party voice on MSO defensibility. * Cross\-Functional Partnership: Partner with the CFO on MSA fee methodology, transfer\-pricing characterization, and fee\-sharing defensibility as a checks\-and\-balances counterpart (not primary owner); partner with commercial leadership on deal\-pace viability; partner with the technology function on data\-visibility infrastructure. * Executive Coaching on Written Communication: Advise the executive team and sponsor representatives on written\-versus\-verbal swim\-lane risk in board meetings, internal communications, and investor discussions. **Qualifications** * Juris Doctor (JD) from an accredited law school and current bar admission in one or more U.S. jurisdictions (multi\-state history preferred); this is a non\-negotiable credential requirement of the role. * Minimum fifteen\-plus years of post\-JD professional experience, with substantive tenure concentrated in compliance or ethics\-and\-professional\-responsibility practice rather than pure transactional or advisory work. * Demonstrated zero\-to\-one build of a compliance program in a regulated, multi\-jurisdictional environment — whether as the first compliance hire at a new entity, the first CCO post\-close at a PE\-backed platform, or a regulator\-to\-in\-house transition. Administrators of mature compliance organizations will not clear the bar. * Alternative Practice Structure or MSO familiarity preferred. Relevant adjacent experience includes healthcare CPOM MSOs, PE\-backed RIA roll\-ups, multi\-state fintech or insurance\-brokerage compliance leadership, and accounting\-firm MSO / alternative\-practice structures. Prior law\-firm MSO experience is neither expected nor required. * Track record of board\-level compliance reporting and demonstrated comfort with dotted\-line accountability to a PE sponsor or similar external board. * Demonstrated ability to produce defensible written governance documentation (delegation\-of\-authority matrices, swim\-lane frameworks, audit calendars, policy libraries) that could withstand regulator or LP scrutiny. * Evidence of a solutions\-oriented compliance posture — the capacity to articulate the conditions under which a restricted activity becomes permissible rather than defaulting to unqualified “no.” * Fluency translating regulatory and compliance matters to non\-lawyer operational audiences — intake staff, case managers, paralegals, and firm operations leaders — with equal credibility as board\-level engagement. * Proven integrity, process discipline, and composure under respectful disagreement; comfort pushing back upward against a CEO, sponsor, or Board when commercial pace outruns control maturity. * Exposure to PE\-backed growth environments preferred (board\-level compliance reporting, dual\-stakeholder management); acquisitive public\-operator experience is an acceptable substitute. * Capacity to assume General Counsel–adjacent oversight as the platform matures, working in partnership with outside transactional counsel. **About Our Client** Our client is a private\-equity\-backed Management Services Organization building a nationally scaling personal\-injury law roll\-up — a first\-generation platform designed to institutionalize professional\-responsibility rigor and operational infrastructure across acquired firms while preserving the independence of each firm's professional legal judgment. The thesis rests on disciplined integration of three\-to\-five platform acquisitions per year plus tuck\-ins across multiple jurisdictions. The founding Chief Compliance Officer will be the authoritative voice on structural defensibility, multi\-state regulatory positioning, and post\-close integration at a moment when the regulatory landscape for PE\-backed legal\-services structures is being actively written — a seat for a compliance leader who views zero\-to\-one build, bi\-directional enforcement, and first\-principles regulatory reasoning as the central work.