Associate (General Counsel and Risk)

**LONDON - EXCHANGE HOUSE/SQUARE**

**THE OPPORTUNITY**

**Key Internal Relationships**:

- In-House Counsel team, broader General Counsel & Risk team, Partnership Secretary, Business Services and Practice Groups.

**Role Overview**:
The role is to work as one of the In-House Counsel lawyers in the General Counsel & Risk team.
- The team reports to the Global General Counsel. The team is based in London and Australia and covers all of the HSF offices.
- Broadly, you will be involved in the following as part of the team:

- HSF governance, partner documentation, and internal HSF contract work and company secretarial.
- Ensuring compliance with the regulatory and practice compliance issues for the firm and advising in response to particular circumstances.
- Advising internally on compliance policies and procedures.
- Developing, promoting and advising internally on internal risk management issues and policies.
- Preparing and delivering compliance and risk training.

**Key Responsibilities**

**Constitution of HSF**
- Advice to partners and management on the constitution of HSF.
- Advising other members of Business Services, for example in responding to panel pitches.
- Responsible for company secretarial aspects of the HSF group structure, such as resolutions, company books, structure charts.

**Partners legal relationship with the firm**
- Responsible for the documentation surrounding a partner's legal relationship to the firm on joining and on secondment or other change.
- Working with other in-house counsel lawyers on issues arising on a partner's joining and departure from the firm.

**Regulatory**
- Understanding the regulatory requirements on the profession of lawyers in the jurisdictions in which we operate.
- Preparation and delivery of education and training.

**General risk and compliance**
- Advising lawyers on compliance and risk issues that arise as they advise clients, such as retainer terms, opinions, escrows, conduct, billing.
- Assisting lawyers to identify our policies and procedures relevant to their matters and advising on those.
- Advising fee earners on the terms on which they may engage with specific clients and reviewing key client terms or requests for bespoke terms or drafting.
- Answering questions and enquiries from clients relating to our risk profile and regulatory position.
- Supporting the decisions made by the Business Services teams in the support of legal practice
- Working with business services teams to manage risks relating to their support of the practice of law issues.
- Advising on contracts with suppliers and others.

**SKILLS, EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS**
- A qualified lawyer with City practice experience in a mainstream corporate role.
- At least 1 year's PQE; qualified in a common law jurisdiction.
- A good technical lawyer.
- Excellent interpersonal skills - the person will liaise with both lawyers and business services groups, in each case at all levels of seniority and from all offices.

**GROUP / TEAM**

General Counsel & Risk

**GROUP / TEAM DESCRIPTION**

General counsel and risk is a multi-disciplinary legal and analytical team. It consists of an internal legal services team, risk and compliance lawyers, internal audit, information security, enterprise risk and new business intake. These disciplines work together globally to ensure that we fulfil all our governance, contractual regulatory and compliance obligations. The general counsel and risk team also advises on the firm's risk profile and risk-based decisions.

The team also supports the executive and governance boards, manages the firm’s insurance matters and has responsibility for implementing the firm's client and matter selection strategy.

It advises our partners and lawyers to ensure that Herbert Smith Freehills remains a highly trusted advisor in a constantly changing world, and works with our Business Services professionals in managing risk on behalf of the firm and enabling high quality strategic and risk-based decisions to be made.

**ROLE TYPE**

Legal professionals/Practice Group

**CONTRACT TYPE**

Secondment

**WORKING PATTERN**

Full Time

**DIVERSITY & INCLUSION**

At Herbert Smith Freehills you will be part of a diverse, innovative culture where high performance, client focus and highly engaged people are our differentiator. People at our firm come from a range of backgrounds and bring a wide variety of experiences and perspectives to their work with us. We strive to ensure that our inclusive environment means you feel valued and able to perform at your best by being your authentic self at work. We know that our future success not only depends on being innovative and progressive in the changing legal market but, most importantly, on our people feeling highly engaged in meaningful work.

We understand that you have commitments and personal interests outside of work and we strive to create a working environment based on mutual trust and respect, in which you can perform at your best