Associate General Counsel

Job purpose and background

The Legal team plays a pivotal part in CDP’s success. We take pride in our understanding of risk and in finding practical and ethical solutions to legal challenges to enable the organisation to achieve its goals. The focus of team’s work is commercial law but we encounter a huge variety of issues relating, for example, to charity, competition, data protection, dispute resolution, employment and IP law.

This is a new role in a London-based team of three – reflecting growth in the organisation and increasing regulation – reporting to CDP’s Group General Counsel & Company Secretary. Working in a friendly and supportive environment you will quickly have the autonomy to lead on a wide range of legal matters, working with colleagues around the world from all parts of the organisation. Sitting on the Senior Management Team with peers from across CDP you will have the opportunity to build relationships and influence, develop skills beyond the purely legal and most importantly, make a meaningful contribution to the organisation’s success.

You’ll be the kind of person who is proactive and likes to get things done, builds rapport easily with colleagues at all levels and enjoys working collaboratively. You’ll also be pragmatic with a balanced approach to risk and focused on solutions.

Main duties and responsibilities

• Supporting the Group General Counsel in managing CDP’s legal function and delivering a first class, cost-effective service to the organisation
• Participating as an active member of the Senior Management Team, developing strong relationships with peers and staff across the organisation to ensure a thorough understanding of CDP’s operations and priorities
• Drafting, reviewing and negotiating commercial contracts (e.g. terms & conditions, data licenses, SaaS contracts, NDAs, partnership agreements, MOUs etc.) and grant agreements
• Advising on a wide range of other legal issues, including instructing and working with external counsel on specialist areas as necessary
• Acting as a key project team member on significant transactions and projects
• Helping to develop processes to ensure compliance with legal obligations
• Helping to build processes for the efficient provision of advice to colleagues across the organisation, including implementing new ways of working, improving existing precedents and developing new ones and providing training to colleagues outside the Legal team

We would expect the successful candidate to

• Have 5+ years’ relevant PQE with a solid grounding in commercial law
• Demonstrate excellent judgement and have absolute integrity
• Be an excellent communicator with people at all levels, able to navigate high levels of detail but deliver clear, succinct messages
• Be resilient and calm under pressure
• Be adept at dealing with challenges and disputes in a positive and efficient way without losing sight of business goals
• Be organised and methodical and able to deliver against a varied workload, managing competing priorities under your own initiative

Desirable skills and experience

• In-house experience
• Legal operations expertise
• Data protection expertise
• Charity law expertise

Further details

This is a full-time, permanent role based at CDP’s Central London office (with options for remote and flexible working) reporting to CDP’s Group General Counsel & Company Secretary.

Salary and benefits: £60-70,000 per annum depending on experience, annual discretionary bonus, 30 days’ holiday, generous non-contributory pension provision, life assurance and other benefits.

Interested applicants must be eligible to work legally in the UK.

Before you apply

We’ll only use the information you provide to process your application. For more details on how we use your information, see our applicants privacy notice. By emailing us your CV and covering letter, you are permitting CDP to use the information you have provided for recruitment purposes.

To apply please email your CV and a covering letter setting out how you meet the required skills and experience, which should be no more than two pages, to [email protected] with ‘Associate General Counsel, Firstname, Surname’ as the subject. The deadline for applications is 25 October 2020.