Counsel, Employment and Litigation

Summary

Cosm operates immersive venues at scale, which means a workforce that spans corporate staff, salaried operators, and a large hourly and event-based population across multiple states. This role is the lawyer for all of it — the employment advice, the policies and training that keep problems from starting, and the disputes that arise anyway.

We are looking for a litigator trained at a major law firm and whose instinct is own matters personally rather than forwarding them.

Posted at two levels. We will calibrate title, scope, and compensation to the experience of the person we hire.

Responsibilities

Disputes and Litigation

• Own employment disputes, arbitration, and litigation end to end —running strategy and execution yourself rather than routing everything out. You will direct outside counsel where a matter warrants it, and control strategy, scope, budget, and quality.
• Handle the commercial, consumer, premises, and vendor disputes a fast-growing company generates, and know when a matter genuinely needs a specialist.

The Venues

• Design and remediate the practices that drive wage and hour exposure.
• Serve as legal advisor to Security and Operations on guest incidents, ejection and use-of-force protocols, guard vendor contracting, premises liability, and incident documentation.
• Advise on worker classification and the contingent, seasonal, and event workforce models venue and production operations depend on, including traditional labor matters as they arise.

Employment, Compensation, and Mobility

• Own the policies, handbooks, and workplace procedures across every jurisdiction Cosm operates in, and build training that actually reaches hourly venue staff, not just corporate managers.
• Advise on sales commission plans and executive compensation arrangements.
• Maintain the employment document suite: offer letters, employment and separation agreements, contractor agreements, and restrictive covenants.
• Manage immigration and global mobility with specialist counsel as Cosm expands, and serve as day-to-day counsel on hiring, discipline, accommodations, leaves, and employee relations.

Where This Role Grows

This seat has potential to grow into ownership of the compliance and ethics program — code of conduct, the reporting hotline and investigations governance, conflicts and gifts policy, third-party diligence, and enterprise-wide training.

Requirements:

• Big law litigation training. Four plus years of practice, with substantial time as a litigator at a major law firm. This is the primary filter for the role.
• Self-managed litigation. A record of running matters personally — pleadings, discovery, depositions, motion practice, mediation — not only supervising others who do.
• California employment depth. Wage and hour, FEHA, PAGA, and Cal/OSHA, with the ability to extend that judgment to other states.
• Operator’s instinct. Comfortable on a venue floor talking to general managers and hourly staff, and able to turn legal risk into guidance an operator can act on.
• Preferred. In-house experience at a multi-site operating business — entertainment, hospitality, live events, retail, or similar — and any exposure to compliance and ethics program work.

This position is based near Cosm’s Los Angeles area office. Cosm values in-person collaboration, and the role requires regular presence at the LA office and at Cosm venues. Occasional travel to other Cosm locations is required.

This role is performed primarily in an office environment, requiring extended periods working at a computer and communicating by phone, video conference, and in writing. The role also requires periodic presence at Cosm venues, including active operating environments, and occasional travel. Cosm provides reasonable accommodations to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this position.

The annualized base salary range for this position in California is $140,000 to $190,000. The base salary offered will factor in internal equity and may also vary depending on the candidate's geographic region, job-related knowledge, skills, and relevant experience, among other factors.