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Legal Counsel

Cheltenham

Full-time

Business Unit: Corporate Services

Salary: £55,000 to £60,000 (dependent on experience)

Overview:

Working within the Legal & Compliance team and reporting to the Head of Legal (General Counsel), you will be the primary contact for colleagues seeking legal assistance. You will possess sound technical knowledge and commercial acumen with the ability to build strong and effective relationships with your internal/external customers and team members, together with excellent time management skills.

This will be a challenging and stretching in-house role which demands a combination of excellent technical expertise, good legal interpretation skills and sound commercial judgment. Advice and input will be required to be given across a broad range of areas and the individual needs to have the ability to balance competing priorities, as well as the ability to influence effectively and inspire confidence and respect at all levels of the organisation.

Role responsibilities:

To provide accurate, pragmatic, timely and proactive legal advice and solutions to the legal issues faced by the UCAS group of companies. The role may at times encompass all areas of law arising in the operation of the business. Subject to the existing skill set and experience of the individual, specific topics and tasks are likely to include:

  • Working closely with the Compliance Officer on matters including Data Protection, FOI, anti-bribery, social media publishing, company law and charity law.
  • General contractual advice and effective management of contractual disputes.
  • Advising on general commercial matters as they arise, including marketing related matters.
  • Maintaining a contracts database.
  • Conduct a review of existing contracts and caseload with a view to establishing organic savings.
  • Drafting and advising ad-hoc contracts.
  • Keeping a watching brief on areas of intellectual property in the forms of copyright works and research, and domain name protection. Advising on contractual and procurement matters arising in platform, software, licensing and hardware implementation.
  • Assisting with the creation of a corporate style legal precedent library of case law, know-how and standard documents.
  • Creating a commercial database of commercial professional support data.
  • Clear and visible client access to updates.
  • Assisting with the drafting and delivery of in-house legal training.
  • Development and sharing of legal best practice.

Essential criteria:

  • A lawyer with solid PQE experience, and ideally, you will have worked in-house and have wide ranging commercial experience.
  • Solid experience of dispute management, employment and property law would be particularly advantageous, together with some experience of the public sector and charities.
  • Very strong technical skills and good attention to detail are essential to be viewed as a safe pair of hands and a valued business partner.
  • Taking ownership of and accountability for the legal affairs of UCAS business that the role supports.
  • Also key to this role is a positive, proactive attitude - you will be a solutions-driven, dynamic lawyer with a creative flair and excellent people skills, to build and maintain strong and effective relationships with customers and other team members.
  • Contract management and procurement experience.
  • Development and implementation of compliance initiatives that may include without limitation: competition law, data protection, safeguarding children/CRB compliance and FOI.
  • Experience of working in a constantly changing environment.
  • Excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
  • Risk management, issue resolution and contingency planning.
  • Experience of producing and giving presentations to a variety of audiences.
  • Strong negotiation skills and experience of third-party supplier contracts.
  • Knowledge of appropriate IT applications including MS Project.

Desirable criteria:

  • Knowledge of the policy environment in which UCAS and key partners operate.

To apply, please send your CV and a covering letter (clearly stating your salary expectations) to jobs@ucas.ac.uk

UCAS values diversity and is committed to equality of opportunity

UCAS does not discriminate on grounds of age, nationality, race, ethnic origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability