Legal Counsel

Job Type: Permanent 

Location: Based from either our Edinburgh, Birmingham or London offices with hybrid working options. 

Flexible working: All of our roles are open to part-time, job-share and other types of flexibility. We will discuss what is important to you and balancing this with business requirements during the recruitment process. You can read more about Phoenix Flex here.

Closing Date:

Salary and benefits: Salary starting from £70,000 plus bonus, private medical cover, 38 days annual leave, excellent pension, 12x salary life assurance, career breaks, income protection, 3x volunteering days and much more.
 

Who are we?

We want to be the best place that any of our 6,600 colleagues have ever worked. 
 
We're Phoenix Group, we're a long-term savings and retirement business. We offer a range of products across our market-leading brands, Standard Life, SunLife, Phoenix Life and ReAssure. Around 1 in 5 people in the UK has a pension with us. We're a FTSE 100 organisation that is tackling key issues such as transitioning our portfolio to net zero by 2050, and we're not done yet. 

The Role
This is an excellent opportunity for a solicitor with commercial contract experience to join us as a Legal Counsel on a permanent basis to work in a highly motivated legal team. The role requires a high level of engagement, self-confidence as well as pragmatism and a curiosity to learn. 

The role requires management of a variety of legal tasks including drafting and negotiating a variety of commercial arrangements, such as IT services agreements, commercial supply contracts, outsourcing agreements, licensing arrangements, operational separation agreements, NDAs and consultancy agreements.  It also requires advising on data processing arrangements and contractual arrangements for new financial propositions, the management of legal risks and horizon scanning as well as being an active member of the wider Phoenix General Counsel function. Our lawyers are expected to take an active interest in the wider business and their stakeholders. 

Key Responsibilities

• Provide high quality, practical and commercial legal advice to allow timely decisions to be made by the business.

• Manage external counsel effectively to ensure services are delivered within budget and to meet the needs of the business.

• Draft high quality legal documentation in a clear and concise way.

• Develop good working relationships across the legal function and the business.

• Manage legal risk appropriately in accordance with the legal risk policy and advise your stakeholders on the risk and options open to them.

• Proactively keep abreast of legal changes and legislative updates to support the Phoenix Group. 

What are we looking for?

• A qualified English or Scottish lawyer with experience of commercial contract work gained in-house or in private practice.

• You will have a good understanding of financial services and what it means to work in a regulated industry and ideally an understanding of Life Assurance and Pensions. 

• Proficiency in drafting, reviewing and negotiating commercial contracts and experience advising on contractual data protection matters.

• Ability to identify, manage and report risks to the business and provide practical solutions to mitigate risk.

• Ability to deliver direct and pragmatic advice and translate complex legal concepts into clear, actionable advice for the business.

• Excellent communication skills to convey complex legal issues clearly to non-lawyers. 

We want to hire the whole version of you.

We are committed to ensuring that everyone feels accepted and welcome applicants from all backgrounds. If your experience looks different from what we've advertised and you believe that you can bring value to the role, we'd love to hear from you. 

 If you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, please let us know so we can help you to be at your best. 

We're reviewing applications as they come in, so apply early to avoid missing out.

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