General Counsel

Overview

A national nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and expanding affordable homeownership in manufactured home communities is seeking a General Counsel to join its Executive Leadership Team. This role involves providing legal leadership during a period of significant growth and evolution, supporting strategy advancement, loan closings, innovative investment structuring, new business development, and enterprise risk management.

Responsibilities

• Lead legal strategy across the organization and its subsidiaries.
• Provide counsel on lending, capital formation, corporate structuring, governance, regulatory compliance, and strategic growth initiatives.
• Support expansion of the lending platform, deployment of federal resources, and exploration of innovative capital structures.
• Advise executive leadership and the Board on legal matters.
• Strengthen the organization's legal infrastructure by reviewing and modernizing loan closing documents, participation agreements, network agreements, governance documents, compliance systems, and legal workflows.
• Redesign legal processes to be efficient, scalable, understandable to low-income communities served, and structured to minimize operational, regulatory, and reputational risk.
• Manage and supervise internal legal staff and coordinate with specialized outside counsel.
• Evaluate which legal functions should be outsourced versus brought in-house to improve efficiency and reduce costs.
• Develop systems, templates, training, quality-control procedures, and internal legal processes to enable consistent and accurate execution with appropriate legal oversight.
• Balance executive-level strategic discussions with detailed document review, process design, and implementation.

Requirements

• Significant experience in real estate and finance law, including loan closings, capital formation, and corporate structuring.
• Strong understanding of regulatory compliance and governance in nonprofit or social enterprise contexts.
• Experience managing legal risk and enterprise risk management.
• Ability to work collaboratively with internal teams and external partners.
• Demonstrated skills in legal process improvement and operational efficiency.
• Leadership experience, including supervising legal staff and managing outside counsel.
• Strong communication skills to engage with executive leadership and board members.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working with community development financial institutions (CDFIs) or similar organizations.
• Background in affordable housing, cooperative governance, or social enterprise legal matters.

Compensation & Benefits

• The organization operates with an approximately $8 million budget and manages over $350 million in assets.
• Compensation details are competitive and commensurate with experience.

Location

• The position is based in the United States; specific location details to be provided during the hiring process.

This role offers the opportunity to shape the future direction of a national social enterprise focused on affordable homeownership while overseeing a broad range of legal matters from community acquisition closings to organizational growth and capital formation.