Dream jobs: Lawyers who love what they do

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Jay L. Stieber, Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises Inc.

While some people take up stamp- or coin-collecting as a hobby, Jay L. Stieber likes to call himself a collector of restaurant menus.

Admittedly, said Stieber, collecting menus is not his real pastime. Rather, it’s an extension of his work as a senior partner in Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises Inc., where he serves as general counsel to the eclectic group of about 72 restaurants that include such eateries as Wildfire, Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba, Everest, and Tru.

”We’re always trying to pick up menus. Not that we’re copycats, but you like to see what other people are doing,” Stieber said. ”We get ideas. And we see things that other people are doing well, and we try to improve on them.”

In some respects, Stieber, who is a lawyer and an accountant, can say he gets paid to eat. Such is the case when Richard Melman, the founder of the restaurant empire, calls him into the test kitchen at the company’s headquarters at 5419 N. Sheridan Rd., where corporate chefs work on creations for new menu items, or improvements to existing dishes.

”I do sit in on tastings,” Stieber said. ”I’m not saying I get a final vote on what goes on a menu, but my opinion is solicited.”

While trying out a particular sauce for a prospective new dish is ”absolutely” a perk of the job, Stieber has a lot on his plate as the only lawyer in a company where the legal issues span the full business spectrum — from negotiating real estate leases and contracts for construction, to overseeing matters involving intellectual property, licensing, labor, and fringe benefits. It is also his job to secure financing for new projects.

”You have to be nimble and quick on your feet because things are always changing. There’s always deals out there that need attention quickly,” said Stieber, who said he makes himself accessible to 53 partners with equity interest in the restaurant group.

”On any given day, many of them might have questions, issues, problems, contracts they need signed or reviewed. It’s definitely not a five-day-a-week job. Senior management receives and makes calls every day. That’s the nature of the business.

”In some ways, there’s a glamour and a mystique to the restaurant business, but it’s a hard business, and we work very hard to provide a good customer experience,” Stieber said.

Stieber, who is a 1972 graduate of Northwestern University School of Law, with an accounting degree from DePaul University, started out his career in public accounting at Arthur Young & Company and spent many years working as chief financial officer to industrial businesses.

In the early 1990s he took a job as chief financial officer and general counsel of a company in the hospitality industry in Chicago. That’s where he met Melman, while representing the company on a deal with the restaurant group. Shortly thereafter, he was asked to join Lettuce.

”The thing he brings to the table most is, he’s a wonderful strategic thinker,” Melman said. ”He’s very bright and he’s very logical, and he just presents different sides of situations.”

Stieber joined Lettuce in 1995 as its CFO, but he quickly assumed the additional title of general counsel.

”The original intention and expectation was that it would be more of a financial job, but it became evident pretty quickly that not using my legal skill set was sort of a waste,” said Stieber, who noted that he often turns to outside counsel from about a half-dozen law firms focusing on areas that include real estate, labor, licensing, intellectual property, and employee benefits.

Stieber estimated that about two-thirds of Lettuce restaurants have opened since he joined the company. He worked on each of those deals, he said, including one in which he negotiated the sale of Lettuce’s Asian-themed chain of eight Big Bowl restaurants to Dallas-based Brinker International about seven years ago, and then negotiated its re-purchase five years later.

”They decided that they were not going to grow it. I negotiated the re-purchase, and we bought Big Bowl back. That was a pretty exciting turn of events, and a pretty exciting deal to work on,” Stieber said. ”It’s been very good for us. We bought it back, we changed the menu, and the stores we bought back have done very nicely.”

While waiting tables, working the kitchen, and checking inventory is not part of his job as general counsel, Stieber said he could pull off running a restaurant for a few days if necessary. He learned the tricks of the trade when he joined Lettuce and went through its restaurant management-training program, spending about 14 weeks working every position in one of the restaurants.

”I loved every minute of it. It was such a total change. I waited tables, I tended bar, I ran the kitchen, I cooked. I learned quickly,” Stieber said.

As for waiting tables, he followed this rule of thumb: ”I didn’t try to carry huge trays; I’d make two trips instead of one,” he said.

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