Deputy General Counsel

**Deputy General Counsel**

**Role Purpose**

You will manage the Costain legal team and will work closely with the GC & Co Sec and other members of the Executive Board. You will deputise for the GC & Co Sec when necessary at meetings and committees. You will provide advice and counsel to the Executive Board and senior leadership teams and will have the opportunity to impact critical business results.

**Key Responsibilities**

You will be responsible for:

- Partner closely with senior stakeholders across the Group including members of the Executive Board and senior leadership teams to support the achievement of business goals and ensuring effective risk management aligned with the Group's risk appetite
- Managing the legal team responsible for providing front-line legal and compliance advice (in-house and external) in an accurate, commercial, practical, timely and cost-effective manner to the Group
- Manage the external legal panel and conduct periodic panel reviews to ensure external panel firms are aligned to Costain's strategic business objectives, provide an effective service and value for money
- Deputising for the GC & Co Sec when necessary at meetings, committees and events such as EIP, Risk and Assurance and other meetings relating to central Group functions
- Ensuring adequate policies, procedures and processes are in place to ensure the Group complies with all applicable laws, regulations, ethical business conduct and all relevant 'must dos' on Costain Way
- Setting and maintaining adequate policies and procedures are in place for the engagement of legal advice and support (in-house and external) across the Group in line with agreed legal triggers
- Achieving agreed KPIs set for the legal function and personal KPI's between you, the GC & Co Sec and other members of the Executive Board
- Role modelling Costain's values and behaviours in your day-to-day activities ad setting a positive leadership shadow for the legal team
- Developing and performance managing direct reports with the legal team to ensure continual improvement in internal client service, drive business value and encourage the achievement of the legal teams' personal development goals
- Supporting Group activities e.g., Group policies, Group training, yearend activities, corporate activities
- Working with the GC & Co Sec and Divisional Legal Leads to ensure the highest standard of integrity throughout the Group and a One Costain culture to maximise all opportunities and mitigate all risks
- Ensuring the provision of (and providing where workload allows) accurate, commercial, practical, timely and cost effective legal advice, meeting the needs of the Costain business plan
- Reporting to the Board and auditors (in collaboration with the Finance Team where appropriate) in relation to disputes, litigation and other potential liabilities of the Costain business, ensuring that an accurate view of prospects of success is taken at all times.

**About You**

**Essential**
- Qualified solicitor, educated to degree level: with 8+years PQE
- A trusted adviser who can quickly build, develop and maintain excellent trusting relationships with senior officers in the Company, as well as build enduring relationships with others both inside and outside the Company
- Demonstrable knowledge of the markets and sectors in which we operate including public sector structure and governance/decision making process.
- Excellent contract drafting and dispute management skills and solid experience of advising on major and complex infrastructure projects, programmes and frameworks and professional services (consultancy) contracts.
- Proven experience as a team manager and organizational leader with strong leadership and mentoring skills and able to demonstrate behaviours of a high performing team (see below)
- Demonstrated ability to work effectively under pressure, independently and within a collaborative culture as well as being able to cope well with stress and meet deadlines
- Strong communication (written and verbal), facilitation and decision-making skills and an ability to present key messages/complex matters in a clear, concise and engaging manner
- Commercially astute with a pragmatic, solution focused approach, strong business acumen and a willingness to be flexible as well as being oriented towards multitasking
- Highly organised and able to handle many ongoing and changing priorities without impact on outputs
- Managing teams in a matrix organisational structure

**High performing team behaviours**
- Acting as Owners - feeling and acting empowered to drive our work forward and make the best decisions for our future
- Using Curiosity to grow our business -being excited, connected and integral to growing and developing what we offer and how we deliver it.
- Having an Ambition for Costain- Delivering your part in ensuring Costain is a success and realises its potential to become a leader across our fields of expertise.
- Using Inclusion to encourage collaboration -Working together to deliver our work - as a close-knit community that is built on trust, equity and positive approaches.
- Bringing Clarity and focus to what we do -Challenging ourselves to remain clear and focused to ensure we land our work in the most effective, consistent ways possible.

**About Costain**

Costain helps to improve people's lives with integrated, leading edge, smart infrastructure solutions across the UK's energy, water, transportation and defence markets. We help our clients improve their business performance by increasing capacity, improving customer service, safeguarding security, enhancing resilience, decarbonising and delivering increased efficiency. Our vision is to be the UK's leading smart infrastructure solutions company. We will achieve this by focusing on blue chip clients whose major spending plans are underpinned by strategic national needs, regulatory commitments, legislation or essential performance requirements. We offer our clients leading edge solutions that are digitally optimised through the following five services which cover the whole lifecycle of their assets: future-shaping strategic consultancy; consultancy and advisory; digital technology solutions; asset optimisation and complex programme delivery. Our culture and values underpin everything we do.

We welcome all applicants regardless of age, race, faith, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, socioeconomic background and physical or neurological disabilities.

We welcome you to ask about the flexibility you need for dynamic working. Such as, working part-time, remote working, or compressed hours. In return, we will explore what is possible.

To find out more about our Inclusion strategy, please visit our ED&I page:
**Right to Work & Security Checks**

Understandably given the nature of our business, everyone who is employed at Costain must undergo thorough referencing checks. We will need different information depending on the job we have offered you. For all roles, we'll carry out a criminal record check and we'll ask to see evidence that you have the legal right to work in the UK.

For some of our roles, you may be required to obtain and maintain security clearance of at least Security Check level (or SC clearance). To satisfy the requirements, you will need to have been a legal UK resident for a minimum of 5 years and have successfully complete all stages of the vetting process.

**Closing date**

A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer.

It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people.

For more details please go to the Disability Confident website:
LI-CS1