Legal Counsel

Legal Counsel (UKEA) About Palladium: Palladium is a global company working to design, develop and deliver positive impact on the lives and livelihoods of people around the globe; broaden access to health, water, power, and infrastructure; build enduring, sustainable, and transformative institutions and market systems to address global challenges; and conserve the natural world. We operate in over 90 countries and have a workforce of 4,000 talented, motivated, and diverse staff of all religions, races, languages, and gender identities. This Opportunity: Palladium’s London office seeks a Legal Counsel as part of the UKEA Legal team (United Kingdom, Europe, Africa). Location: The position is based in Palladium’s London office. You and Your Career: If you are a mid-level commercially-minded lawyer with a passion for impact, we are interested in hearing from you. We’re looking for passionate lawyers with a strong corporate/commercial background, who are interested in using their skills to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Working with a diverse team across a number of countries, you will have the opportunity to contribute to interesting projects, transactions and compliance efforts across new and interesting markets and structures. We pride ourselves on giving you the freedom, resources, and guidance to chart a fulfilling career! Reporting and Supervision: The role reports to UKEA’s Head of Legal and Compliance. Primary Roles and Responsibilities: The UKEA Legal and Compliance team covers three main areas of practice. This role involves contributing strongly to the delivery of these areas, including leading matters autonomously. Commercial contracting: · Support UKEA corporate teams with project contract preparation, legal review and amendment across government and non-government clients, particularly. · Support UKEA proposal development including review of non-standard teaming agreements, RFP/tender contract analysis, provision of corporate information and any other requirements as necessary. · Oversee the above particularly by design and rollout of team/project empowerment initiatives, delivering (for example) training, equipping initiatives and templates that enable standardisation wherever possible. Compliance and corporate governance: · In collaboration with the Company Secretariat and the Registrations Committee, assess country registration requirements, determine the most appropriate form of registration and co-ordinate with other corporate services to accomplish registration. · Provide enabling oversight and expertise – in collaboration with Finance, Company Secretariat, projects and COO – to ensure that UKEA in country registrations are up to date and in compliance with company policy. · Accountable for wider team’s maintenance of UKEA entities in the entity register database, ensuring completeness and accuracy of information. · Create country compliance profiles for the reference and guidance of Project Directors and corporate/program staff and update them as necessary. · Contributing to and supporting Risk Management function in the UKEA region. Corporate support: · Provide advice to the UKEA business on contracting, employment, litigation, legislation and compliance on tax, employment etc across various corporate and project jurisdictions. · Identification and management of external counsel for any relevant matter identified above or below. · Contribute to delivery of a program of training for UKEA program and operations staff on contracts, compliance with entity maintenance requirements. · Contribution to the development and refinement of policies, procedures, templates and guidance documents; and support the roll-out, training and implementation of such revised tools within UKEA, but with a ‘One Palladium’ lens. · Support the implementation of real property leases for projects and corporate offices, where requested. · Act as Legal and Compliance representative on the Business Development team as required, or identifies team members to do so. · Contribute to insurance declarations and claims for UKEA. · Collaborating with other regional Legal & Compliance teams, and assisting with cross-region compliance and documentation. Key Competencies Required: · Degree in Law (LLB, JD or equivalent) and qualified lawyer in a Commonwealth jurisdiction (essential) · UK right to work · Broad-based relevant and practical legal experience in commercial contracting, including services agreements, joint ventures, profit share agreements and grant agreements across both public and private sectors (including UK public sector work) (essential) · Experience working in international businesses, with hands-on experience in developing and managing cross-border contracting (and transactions), international compliance, group structures, data protection and corporate governance (essential) · In-house experience in a comparable organisation (essential) · Experience of the development sector and/or impact investing and/or the advisory and/or consulting sector (strongly desirable) · Strong commercial focus underpinned by negotiation skills · Experience producing and delivering training, and the ability to communicate complex legal and compliance issues to non-legally trained commercial and project teams · Willingness and ability to walk in (internal and external) client shoes; a strong ‘business partnership’ ethos · Highly effective organisational skills, attention to detail. · A great team player who can work collaboratively to get the right outcomes. · Excellent problem solving and decision-making skills. · Commitment to Palladium’s vision, mission and values Equity, Diversity & Inclusion – Palladium is committed to embedding equity, diversity, and inclusion into everything we do. We welcome applications from all sections of society and actively encourage diversity to drive innovation, creativity, success and good practice. We positively welcome and seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce; and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment regardless of their background or personal characteristics. These include: (but are not limited to) socio-economic background, age, race, gender identity and expression, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, nationality, veteran, marital or Indigenous status. Should you require any adjustments or accommodations to be made due to a disability or you are a neurodivergent individual or for any other circumstance, please email our team at accessibility@thepalladiumgroup.com and we will be in touch to discuss. Safeguarding – We define Safeguarding as “the preventative action taken by Palladium to protect our people, clients and the communities we work with from harm”. We are committed to ensuring that all children and adults who come into contact with Palladium are treated with respect and are free from abuse. All successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced selection process including safeguarding-focused interviews and a rigorous due diligence process.