El Pollo Loco restaurant. Photo: Shutterstock

Costa Mesa, California-based fast food chain El Pollo Loco has hired a new chief legal officer, one with industry experience in-house.

Jason Weintraub will join the company, whose restaurants specialize in serving Sinaloa, Mexico-styled grilled chicken, on Aug. 29. He announced the move Friday on LinkedIn.

“Thrilled to fulfill my long-standing career goal to lead the legal function of a public company and to support such a well-known restaurant brand,” Weintraub said in his post. Neither he nor El Pollo Loco immediately responded to a request for additional comment.

It's not Weintraub's first time in-house at a fast food company. He brings with him more than five years of experience in-house at Taco Bell, where Weintraub started as legal director in 2012. During his time at the Irvine, California-based fast food chain, he also served as head of international business affairs and senior director of business and legal affairs.

Weintraub left Taco Bell for his most recent in-house role, the general counsel position at BSH Home Appliances Corp., in 2017.

At BSH, Weintraub led legal and compliance “to create competitive advantages for the business” by protecting its brand and building ”cost-effective compliance programs,” according to his LinkedIn profile.

He has also held senior legal roles at Broadcom Inc. and DRI Companies Inc., where he started his in-house career as CLO in 2005. Weintraub began his legal career at firms, starting at Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin⁠—since acquired by Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer—before moving to Horvitz & Levy.

According to LinkedIn, El Pollo Loco's most recent chief legal officer was Edye Austin, who led its legal team for over a decade. The company's executive page does not list a current CLO. Austin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.