AVP, Contingent Liability Legal – P&C

If you're passionate about being part of a diverse organization that enables a Fortune 100 company with nearly $70 billion in annual sales to deliver innovative business solutions with excellence, then Nationwide's Legal team could be the place for you! At Nationwide®, “on your side” goes beyond just words. Our customers are at the center of everything we do and we’re looking for associates who are passionate about delivering extraordinary care.

The Assistant Vice President, Contingent Liability Legal – P&C provides strategic leadership and senior legal guidance for Nationwide's most significant property and casualty contingent-liability matters, including bad-faith allegations, extra-contractual exposure, complex coverage disputes, and other high-risk litigation.

This role serves as a trusted advisor to Claims, Legal, Finance, Underwriting, Reinsurance, Compliance, and business leadership, providing enterprise-level oversight of litigation risk, governance, financial exposure, and resolution strategy. The AVP promotes consistent legal decision-making, strengthens risk management practices, and ensures that legal guidance aligns with Nationwide's business objectives, customer commitments, and risk appetite.

As a strategic leader, the AVP provides portfolio oversight, escalation support, governance, resource direction, and organizational leadership rather than direct day-to-day management of individual matters.

Core Responsibilities

Strategic Litigation and Portfolio Leadership

·          Provide executive oversight of Nationwide's contingent-liability portfolio, including matters involving significant financial, operational, regulatory, or reputational risk.

·          Establish priorities, governance standards, escalation protocols, and resource strategies for complex litigation and claims-related disputes.

·          Direct legal strategy for significant bad-faith, extra-contractual, coverage, and related litigation matters, including settlement, mediation, trial, and appeals considerations.

·          Ensure coordinated, consistent approaches across internal legal teams, Claims organizations, and outside counsel.

Risk Management and Business Advisory

·          Identify emerging legal and business risks and provide practical, strategic guidance to mitigate exposure.

·          Advise leadership on legal, regulatory, financial, operational, and reputational implications of claims practices, litigation positions, and business initiatives.

·          Develop governance frameworks, decision-making standards, and best practices to support consistent, defensible outcomes across the enterprise.

·          Partner with key stakeholders to address evolving legal, regulatory, and industry developments.

Financial and Outside Counsel Oversight

·          Oversee significant litigation exposure, reserve evaluations, legal spend, and financial reporting related to contingent-liability matters.

·          Provide strategic guidance regarding reserve adequacy, settlement authority, and litigation budgets.

·          Establish standards for the selection, management, and performance of outside counsel.

·          Promote accountability, budget discipline, and efficient resource utilization across the portfolio.

Leadership and Talent Development

·          Lead, coach, and develop attorneys and legal professionals responsible for complex litigation matters.

·          Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, sound judgment, and continuous improvement.

·          Provide strategic support and escalation assistance to matter-responsible attorneys while promoting professional development and knowledge sharing.

·          Align team resources and capabilities with enterprise priorities and emerging risks.

Enterprise Influence and Continuous Improvement

·          Build and maintain strong partnerships across Legal, Claims, Finance, Underwriting, Reinsurance, Compliance, and business leadership.

·          Communicate complex legal and business issues clearly and effectively to senior stakeholders.

This role is preferred hybrid in Columbus, OH, but remote will be considered.

Job Description Summary

Would you thrive in an environment where you can deliver top-quality legal services to support the mission of a Fortune 100 insurance company? If you enjoy having a diverse workload, are adaptable, highly skilled and bring a collaborative approach to complex and important legal work, we want to know more about you!

As an Associate Vice President, you'll be a litigation leader for contingent litigation matters throughout the Property & Casualty (P&C) businesses. We will count on you to research, evaluate and advise to the risk management strategy for all P&C contingent litigation. You will lead and collaborate with key internal and external partners to influence the outcome of key litigation challenges in alignment to Nationwide's brand.

Job Description

Key Responsibilities:

• Provides legal opinions, advice, and counsel to senior levels of management in the P&C business units on prospective litigation. Evaluates proposed business plans for litigation exposure.
• Builds P&C contingent litigation strategy and consults to management teams on objectives, strategies, and outcomes. Responsible for risk avoidance and mitigation.
• Establishes and runs the loss and expense reserves associated with all P&C bad faith and contingent liability. Generates monthly and quarterly loss and expense financial reporting of all contingent litigation to the Office of Finance for statutory and GAAP reporting requirements.
• Coordinates the management of all relationships with outside counsel and ensures compliance with standard terms of retention and other requirements applicable to outside counsel. Emphasis on activities such as selection, litigation plans and budgets, discovery strategy, early case assessment, settlement determinations, cost management and review of billings.
• Leads a team of Counsels and develops and helps team on the flow of issues and matters within the group.
• May perform other responsibilities as assigned.
• Reporting Relationships: Reports to VP, P&C Litigation.
• Typical Skills and Experiences: Education: Juris Doctorate from an American Bar Association-accredited law school.
• License/Certification/Designation: Associates reporting within Nationwide’s Office of the Chief Legal Officer (OCLO) who are functioning in attorney roles must be fully licensed in accordance with OCLO policy, in good standing and in compliance with all continuing legal education requirements at all times in the state(s) in which they practice.
• Experience: Ten to 15 years of relevant legal and P&C insurance experience.
• Knowledge, Abilities and Skills: Experience working on corporate matters with senior executives. Strong business and financial acuity. Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Ability to analyze and communicate sophisticated legal concepts and provide advice in a pragmatic and easy to understand manner. Ability to collaborate, lead and influence across teams and at all levels of the company. Excellent interpersonal skills with ability to build organizational talent.
• Other criteria, including leadership skills, proficiencies and experiences may take precedence.
• Staffing exceptions to the above must be approved by the hiring manager’s leader and HR Business Partner.
• Values: Regularly and consistently demonstrates Nationwide Values.
• Job Conditions: Overtime Eligibility: Not Eligible (Exempt)
• Working Conditions: Normal office environment. Some travel may be required.
• ADA: The above statements cover what are generally believed to be principal and essential functions of this job. Specific circumstances may allow or require some people assigned to the job to perform a somewhat different combination of duties.