Senior Legal Counsel

Senior Legal Counsel - Journals - Maternity Cover

• Full-time

Informa is a leading academic publishing, business intelligence, knowledge, and events business, creating unique content and connectivity for customers all over the world. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a member of the FTSE 100.

Taylor & Francis is one of the world’s largest publishers of high-quality, peer reviewed scholarly journals, books, e-books and reference works. We empower learners, thinkers and doers with trusted knowledge that advances research and enriches lives. We bring together diverse people, ideas and opinions to validate and publish the experts, theories and truths that matter. And we’ve been doing this in an unbroken arc since 1798.

Our purpose is to foster human progress through knowledge. We strongly believe that this requires us to encourage and examine different ideas and voices, so that any work that meets our exacting levels of quality deserves to be included in our publications. This requires open minds, the opportunity for robust debate, and the courage to defend perspectives that stand up to scrutiny, even if they conflict with our personal beliefs or values. Because that’s the only way to find the best obtainable version of the truth and, ultimately, foster human progress. If you agree, then we’d love to hear from you.

We are currently recruiting for a talented Senior Legal Counsel to join the Taylor & Francis legal team (maternity cover for up to 12 months). This is an exciting opportunity to become a valued business partner to a global content business, and to be part of a collegiate and supportive legal team.

Reporting directly into the General Counsel for Taylor & Francis, you will be responsible for supporting Taylor & Francis on all legal matters, with particular focus on the Journals business. In this business-facing role, you will work closely with senior management and other key stakeholders, including in the Editorial, Production, Marketing, Commercial and Product/Technology functions.

The Taylor & Francis legal team is a highly respected and valued business partner to Taylor & Francis, with lawyers based in the UK, US and Singapore. The team combines technical legal expertise with commercial insight and an appreciation for the business’ objectives to provide constructive, balanced and effective advice.

Responsibilities are expected to include:

• Taking a lead on the legal team’s support to the Journals business, for example including:
  • Proactively building effective working relationships with senior leadership in the business and representing the legal team at management meetings contributing expertise and influencing
  • Identifying and managing projects end to end to mitigate any identified areas of legal risk
  • Identifying and then leading support to the Journals business on upcoming changes to legislation or policies that might impact its operations
  • Representing Taylor & Francis at external events, trade body meetings and industry initiatives as appropriate
  • Oversee work of junior Legal Team members, as required
• IP/copyright/commercial/AI
  • Leading support to the business on complex IP/copyright-related matters, including for example advising on legal developments around AI, rights in an AI licensing context and IP policy developments
  • Drafting, negotiating and advising senior leaders on a wide range of commercial contracts, including customer contracts, publishing agreements, author/editor contracts, distribution and agency agreements, supplier agreements and IT/technology contracts
• Advising on content-related issues and disputes, both pre- and post-publication, including issues related to copyright, defamation and privacy
• Taking a lead on managing and resolving third party disputes
• Instructing external counsel where necessary and managing external legal costs
• Collaborating effectively with the other lawyers in the Taylor & Francis legal team (based in the US, UK and Singapore) to ensure a consistent and effective approach to managing legal risk across the business globally

Knowledge and experience required

• A qualified lawyer with around 6 years plus post-qualification experience (PQE is given as a guide only. This will not be a determining factor of suitability and applicants of other levels of PQE may apply).
• Prior experience of building effective working relationships with senior commercial stakeholders in a business.
• A robust understanding of intellectual property/copyright law and demonstrable experience of advising clients on, and finding pragmatic solutions to, complex copyright and licensing issues, ideally within a content industry. Experience of advising on copyright issues within an AI context is desirable but not essential.