Senior Manager, Compliance & Legal Operations

About this role

Studs is a category-defining ear piercing and earring brand named one of “the 10 most innovative companies in retail for 2023” by Fast Company. Studs connects ear piercing with aftercare and earring shopping to create an end-to-end Earscaping® experience. We offer a better retail and digital experience that prioritizes safety and expertise in a cool, fun and welcoming environment, along with a wide earring assortment—all at an accessible price point.

Studs operates 40+ piercing studios across 15 states and is opening 8–10 new locations per year. The Senior Manager, Compliance & Legal Operations owns two functions end-to-end: the studio compliance program across every active and opening location, and the operational backbone of a small, high-performing Legal & Compliance department. The role runs the daily cadence of the Studio Compliance App, drives Regional and Studio Manager accountability on open compliance items, and oversees establishment and individual piercer licensing across all 41+ studios. It owns piercing-related pre-opening work through opening day, serves as Studs' primary point of contact with state and local health departments, and partners with the insurance broker on COIs, renewals, and claims. On the legal operations side, the role owns contract lifecycle management, the matter tracker, outside counsel invoice review and budget tracking, entity maintenance for Studs, Inc. and Studs Leasing, LLC, and paralegal-level support to the CLO and Senior Counsel on financings, NDAs, subpoenas, litigation holds, and IP. This is a role for someone who has run a compliance or legal operations function before and wants to do it at scale across a fast-moving, multi-market retail environment – not a first step into compliance work.

Salary Range: $125,000 – $165,000

Key Responsibilities:

Studio Compliance Program and Licensing

• Owns daily operation of the Studs Studio Compliance App, ensuring Regional Managers and Studio Managers are actively managing their teams on compliance requirements and driving all open items to closure.

• Reviews and interprets state, county, and city health department regulations to support new studio openings and keep all studio compliance materials current across every active market.

• Delivers structured training sessions for Regional Managers, Piercing Educators, and Studio Managers across rotating topic areas: inspection preparation, assessment protocol, minor consent requirements by tier, and regulatory updates.

• Owns procurement, maintenance, and renewal of establishment licenses and oversight of procurement, maintenance and renewal of individual piercer licenses across all 41+ studios; uses the Compliance App to monitor expiration alerts, submit renewal packets, track fees, and confirm correct posting in each studio.

• Manages all notification workflows to regulatory authorities where required; maintains the studio compliance resource library and produces a monthly compliance scorecard for review by Studs’ CLO, Retail Team and the People Team.

Regulatory Oversight and New Studio Openings

Conducts on-demand and quarterly regulation reviews by state; tracks pending legislation in every market where Studs operates and in new markets under evaluation; maintains Studs’ canonical regulatory knowledge base and jurisdiction contacts database.

• Serves as Studs’ primary point of contact for state and local departments of health and enforcement authorities; oversight of the Studs inspection protocol during regulatory visits.

• Owns all piercing-related Legal & Compliance pre-opening tasks from the four-month mark through opening day – determining jurisdictional regulatory category, planning licensing timelines, filing establishment and individual piercer license applications, and preparing service-specific waivers in Jotform.

• Coordinates with Regional Managers on staffing and credentialing, with Retail Operations on turnover day, and with Studs’ insurance broker on GL, Property, and Workers Compensation endorsements and certificates of insurance; generates Day 1 compliance materials including the studio compliance binder, ICEP, and Regulation Guide before soft open and completes FOH posting verification on opening day.

• Serves as operational point of contact with Studs’ insurance broker for COI issuance, renewal binder assembly, and claim intake logging; supports the CLO on the annual insurance renewal process.

Legal Operations and Contract Lifecycle Management

Owns contract management system hygiene across intake discipline, metadata quality, template library maintenance, signed-agreement filing, and weekly review of renewal and expiration alerts.

• Maintains a single-source matter tracker for the department covering topic, owner, outside counsel, status, and next action.

• Reviews and processes outside counsel invoices with a first-pass check for reasonableness and accurate matter attribution; tracks budgets against quarterly projections across outside counsel partners.

• Maintains the Legal & Compliance Google Drive structure and naming conventions; supports corporate governance workstreams through exhibit compilation, version control, e-signature packet assembly, and minute book maintenance.

Paralegal, Entity, and Department Support

• Provides paralegal-level support to the CLO and Senior Counsel including cite-checking, source verification, closing binder and deal room preparation for financings and material transactions, NDA intake and execution, and DocuSign packet assembly and post-execution filing.

• Manages entity maintenance for Studs, Inc. and Studs Leasing, LLC in coordination with the Finance Team: state annual reports, certificates of good standing, registered agent coordination, and foreign qualification as new studios open.

• Handles subpoena and third-party request intake, logging, and initial assessment; supports litigation hold tracking and IP portfolio administration.

• Triages legal intake requests from other de

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