Legal Counsel

Overview of the role: 

WestJet seeks an in-house legal counsel with employment, privacy and commercial law experience to join our dynamic, high-performing legal team.   

You will work alongside the Associate General Counsel, Employment & Privacy and assist in providing day-to-day and strategic direction and advice on privacy, human rights, and employment-related legal issues facing the WestJet Group, with secondary support to corporate and commercial legal colleagues. You will mainly work with the People & Culture, Commercial, Cybersecurity, and Information Technology teams assisting with all legal issues, including contract review, policy development, providing regulatory advice, and managing litigation and external counsel. You will act as counsel for WestJet in Canada Labour Code, Canadian Human Rights Act and Air Passenger Protection Regulations proceedings.     

You will continue to strengthen an efficient and effective partnership between various business units and the legal team. You will have passion, positive drive, confidence, and agility and will combine your strong business acumen and strategic legal counsel to partner with other legal team members, all levels of the organization and external legal counsel. You should have a pragmatic and professional approach to challenging legal issues, take initiative, be able to adapt quickly to change and legal ambiguities, be able to establish and meet deadlines, and be a highly motivated, well-rounded self-starter with a high energy level. You should be able to effectively communicate sophisticated advice in a high-volume and fast-paced environment to a variety of our internal clients. In your cover letter, please tell us about a recent interesting case that you think might be valuable to WestJet (limit your thoughts to a paragraph).

Key deliverables include:  

• Support employment, privacy, commercial, corporate, digital and technology matters at the WestJet Group;
• Provide pragmatic and timely advice to various departments and act as legal subject matter expert on cross-functional projects;
• Partner with the commercial, IT, regulatory and other business units to advise on the interpretation and application of applicable regulations and the drafting, negotiating, and reviewing of commercial agreements, policies, and procedures with regulatory implications;

• Partner with the People & Culture team to provide direction on recruitment, discipline and performance management, terminations, accommodations and disability management, workplace investigations, health and safety, and policy development and implementation;
• Perform legal research and draft legal opinions on a variety of legal issues pertaining to employment, commercial, corporate and privacy law;
• Act as counsel for WestJet in matters related to PIPEDA , the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Canada Labour Code and the Air Passenger Protection Regulations, including preparing and drafting documents and conducting mediations and hearings;
• Conduct and/or oversee the handling of employment, privacy and commercial litigation files, including through instruction and management of external counsel;
• Represent WestJet in negotiations, mediations and discussions and other dealings with counterparties and governmental agencies;

• Provide general legal advice to all areas of WestJet and its affiliates.

Experience & qualifications:  

• Must be a lawyer with at least 2 years of legal experience in a law firm or in-house counsel position and be a member in good standing of the Alberta Bar (or another provincial bar);
• Broad base of experience in employment and human rights law, preferably in the federal sector;
• Broad base of experience in commercial litigation and regulatory proceedings;

• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, with the ability to interact with different departments and management levels across the company;
• Proven ability to deal with complex legal issues involving multiple areas of the law and multiple jurisdictions;
• Ability to excel in a fast-paced environment with changing deadlines and priorities;
• Strong analytical, dispute resolution and problem-solving skills required;
• Committed team player who brings humour and humility to the job;

• Bilingualism (English/French) is an asset.