Senior Legal Counsel

Purpose

Reporting directly to the Head of Legal, effective legal risk management in line with Group risk profile and

strategic and financial objectives and with a focus on general commercial and contract matters.

Responsibilities

• Reviewing, drafting and negotiating commercial agreements, and advising on the management of associated risks and regulatory considerations, including:

• third party supplier agreements for all business areas (IT, data, services, outsourcing, HR, Marketing);
• legal advice and deliverables for Change Management project delivery;
• day to day advice and support on Group contracts, legal risks and resolution of queries and issues.

• Legal Team lead on third party supplier contracts and associated risk management.
• Legal advice and support on Group governance and risk management associated with data protection, cyber security, and the protection of Group trademark and domain name portfolios.
• Actively contributing to embedding and enhancement of team risk management controls, reporting mechanisms and Legal operations management.
• Close regular liaison with Risk & Compliance as necessary.
• Management of role’s direct reports within team.
• Maintaining working knowledge of Group product and service offerings, and relevant regulatory matters, in order to deliver tailored and effective legal advice and review.
• Identify and proactively escalate risks and issues appropriately to relevant stakeholders, challenge robustly as necessary, propose solutions.
• Ensure timescales for legal deliverables are consistently maintained, completing tasks in a timely manner and prioritising as necessary.
• Maintaining complete records in accordance with team procedures for ensuring the integrity of Group contracts repositories and Legal team matter management data.
• Take accountability for own work and its accuracy.
• Assist team members as required and work effectively with colleagues.
• Team support / other as reasonably required by Head of Legal.
• While not directly interacting with customers, your actions should align with upholding the FCA's Consumer Duty principles, thereby contributing to fair and beneficial outcomes for our clients.

Skills

• Solid foundation of highly developed contract review, drafting and advice skills.
• Adapts review proportionately to nature of arrangement, risks and objectives.
• Confident with complex drafting and committed to high standards of drafting.
• Takes pride in work. Can be relied on to proof as needed to control risk of errors, and to proactively facilitate ease of review by others.
• Strong analytical skills.
• Proactively verifies against drafting or fact-finding methods as appropriate.
• Excellent communication skills – written and verbal. Tailored to relevant audience and their needs.
• Confident, clear, accurate. Concise. Plain English – no legal jargon.
• Highly organised.
• Priorities appropriately. Willing and able to report effectively on same.
• Remains productive and a team player under pressure.
• Plans, anticipates and manages issues and workload to achieve priorities, timelines and objectives.
• Solution-oriented. Proactive and pragmatic in risk and stakeholder management.
• Consistently reliable in attention to detail and thoroughness.

  Knowledge

• Experienced commercial lawyer with expertise in contract law.
• Prior relevant industry experience in FCA regulatory framework highly desirable.
• Proficient in use of Microsoft Office (especially Word) features – dab hand at basics like tracking features and automated cross-references for ensuring quality control in work.

  Qualifications

• UK qualified lawyer with strong academic background.

  Other Relevant Information

• As part of a small Legal team, flexible and adaptive.
• Displays understanding of the needs of clients and colleagues.
• Applies skills and expertise to achieve desired outcomes.
• Takes responsibility for developing links to wider team.
• Enthusiastic, professional, highly motivated team player.
• Strives for continuous improvement.
• Culture carrier of 7IM vision, purpose, values and personality.