Senior Legal Advisor in Luton

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The benefits include:

• Health and Wellbeing Plans
• 23 days paid holiday increasing to 25 after 2 years
• Discounts and Cashbacks
• Paid Volunteering days
• Employee Assistance Program
• Refer a Friend Scheme
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• Bonus

Carlisle Support Services is looking for a part-time Senior Legal Advisor who will deliver high-quality, commercially astute and pragmatic legal guidance to stakeholders at all levels, ensuring the business operates confidently within its legal and regulatory framework. The role requires a hands-on, proactive legal professional capable of managing a diverse portfolio of legal matters with minimal supervision.

Your core role will include but not be limited to the following activities:

• Provide accurate, timely and commercially pragmatic legal advice to support business operations, strategic initiatives, and senior management decision-making.
• Serve as a key escalation point for day-to-day legal queries, offering clear and practical guidance tailored to operational needs.
• Independently manage and negotiate complex, high-value or high-risk legal matters, ensuring alignment with the organisation's appetite for risk and commercial objectives.
• Support operational and commercial teams through contract interpretation, risk identification, liability analysis, and dispute prevention strategies.
• Provide guidance on regulatory matters relevant to the business, escalating complex issues to the Director of Legal and Procurement as appropriate.
• Draft, review and negotiate a wide range of complex commercial agreements, including Master Service Agreements, customer and supplier framework agreements, tenders, service contracts, partnership agreements and NDAs.
• Manage the contract lifecycle from instruction to execution, ensuring proper governance, version control, and documentation retention.
• Identify and assess contractual risks, proposing commercially balanced and legally robust solutions to mitigate exposure.
• Support commercial teams in bids, proposals and tender responses to ensure legally compliant and competitive submissions.
• Assist in the identification, assessment and mitigation of legal risk across business units and projects.
• Support with overseeing the organisation's corporate governance framework, supporting the Board and its committees, and managing the legal function to ensure effective delivery of legal advice, regulatory compliance and risk management across the business.
• Lead on the development, implementation and continuous improvement of legal policies and procedures, including governance frameworks and compliance controls.
• Lead or support early-stage dispute management, including internal fact-finding, risk assessment, and preparation of strategic response plans.
• Seek early, commercial resolution of disputes wherever possible, avoiding escalation and protecting the organisation's commercial relationships.
• Contribute to the ongoing enhancement of legal processes, systems and tools to improve efficiency and risk management.
• Develop and deliver legal training sessions, workshops and guidance materials to improve legal awareness across the organisation (e.g., contract basics, risk spotting, compliance obligations).
• Work collaboratively with colleagues across Legal, Procurement, Finance, Sales, Operations and other business units to support business objectives.

The ideal candidate should have:

Essential:

• 7-10 years PQE solicitor (England & Wales or equivalent).
• Significant experience in commercial law, ideally gained in an in-house environment or through a commercial-focused private practice role.
• Advanced expertise in drafting, reviewing and negotiating commercial contracts.
• Proven ability to work autonomously, exercise sound judgement and manage multiple priorities effectively.
• Commercially minded, solutions-focused and comfortable balancing legal risk with operational realities.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to convey complex legal concepts clearly and confidently to non-lawyers.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, including experience advising senior leaders.

Desirable:

• Experience within service-based sectors such as facilities management, security, cleaning, engineering services or outsourced services.
• Experience advising on public or private sector procurement processes, frameworks and contract structures.
• Familiarity with commercial frameworks, NEC4, JCT or similar contract suites.
• Experience supporting governance, compliance or risk management initiatives.

Location is Luton/flexible.

About us: Join a growing market-leading brand of support services to work with the UK's largest brands such as Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Jaguar Land Rover, Tesco, BBC StudioWorks, and many more. Carlisle currently employs over 5,000 dedicated and enthusiastic staff members to deliver events, security cleaning, and retail facilities support services across the UK's most renowned sites and critical infrastructure. Apply today to find out more and embark on an exciting career journey filled with unrivalled recognition schemes and progression opportunities aimed at helping you achieve your true potential.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: At Carlisle, we are committed to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in all areas of employment, recruitment and selection, training, development, and promotion. In all situations people will be judged solely on merit or ability.