Legal Advisor

**COMPANY**

easyJet is Europe’s leading airline offering a unique and winning combination of the best route network connecting Europe's primary airports, with great value fares and friendly service.

easyJet flies on more of Europe’s most popular routes than any other airline and carried more than 96 million passengers in 2019 - more than 16 million travelling for business. The airline has over 300 aircraft on nearly 1000 routes to more than 150 airports across 35 countries. Over 300 million Europeans live within one hour's drive of an easyJet airport.

Innovation is in easyJet’s DNA - since launching over 25 years ago, easyJet changed the way people fly to the present day where the airline leads the industry in digital, web, engineering and operational innovations to make travel more easy and affordable for its passengers.

The airline was named as Britain’s Most Admired Company of 2020 in the transport sector, retaining the leading position for a second year running. Britain's Most Admired Companies study is the longest-running annual survey of corporate reputation in the UK

**TEAM**

This role will sit within the Employment Legal Team, which currently consists of the Head of Legal - Employment and a Senior Labour and Employment Lawyer for UK and Europe. We hope to have an EU Legal Advisor joining the team later this year.

The Employment Team is an integral part of the wider Legal Team of approximately 25 lawyers, which sits within easyJet’s General Counsel’s Office (GCO) function. The Employment Team supports easyJet’s HR function (including Reward, Recruitment and Global Mobility) as well as the Industrial Relations and Employee Relation Teams across the whole of easyJet’s UK and European network. In addition, the Employment Team has a significant amount of interaction with wider business stakeholders and senior management. As part of the wider GCO function, the Team plays a key role in continually improving legal service delivery to drive easyJet’s strategic objectives.

**JOB PURPOSE**

We are looking for a qualified Employment Lawyer to work closely with our key business stakeholders, including the UK Employee Relations Team and HR Business Partners, to advise on legal risk and strategy. You will work on various European and UK employment matters and be responsible for providing pragmatic, commercially minded legal advice and support across easyJet’s businesses.

**Requirements of the Role**

**JOB ACCOUNTABILITIES**

Deliver strategic, commercially focussed legal services to the easyJet businesses in the UK and Europe, including:
**Advisory work**: Provide practical, solution focused legal advice over the full range of employment and labour law issues including employee relations matters (disciplinaries, grievances, absence management etc); restrictive covenants; whistleblowing; working time queries; TUPE; policy reviews; bonus and benefits arrangements and employee exits.

**Industrial Relations (IR)**: understand the IR landscape across the easyJet network including consultation requirements; help the business to effectively manage and respond to IR issues; and support negotiations as required.

**Contract management**: Advise on the use and implementation of atypical contracts (particularly seasonal contracts); reviewing and updating contractual templates, including contracts of employment, letters notifying of contractual changes and settlement agreements.

**Litigation**: Management of UK employment litigation and settlement; advise on litigation strategy with support from external counsel; and identify litigation trends that may require changes to policy, process or procedures.

**Managing external counsel**:Retain and work effectively with outside counsel where required; manage external counsel to reduce external spend and secure value added services from our external legal partners. Support a streamlined and cost efficient process for HR/ER use of legal support across the network.

**Training**: Identify and provide training on key employment and compliance risk areas; keep up to date with relevant legal developments across the UK and Europe; and keep the easyJet HR teams appraised of relevant developments and upcoming changes, and support the delivery of those changes.

**Cross-border issues**:Evaluate and advise on issues arising from working with a mobile and cross border workforce, to identify legal risks and how these can be mitigated.

**Continuous improvement**: Work closely with all other areas of easyJet to design and deliver strategies, policies and practices that are aligned to the easyJet plan and drive improvements to how legal services are delivered to the business.

**QUALIFICATIONS, EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS REQUIRED**
- Qualified employment lawyer
- Experience with immigration, data protection, employee benefits or health and safety issues or within the aviation sector would be beneficial (but not essential).
- Excellent written and oral communication skil