Senior Associate/Legal Director - Charities in Bristol

DACB is growing its charities and not for profit practice. The team is particularly known for advising charities and other not-for-profits in the health and social care and education sectors, and DACB is widely recognised as the leading strategic, commercial and regulatory legal advisor to the health and social care sector in the UK and internationally. The team acts for household names and is noted for combining a commercial and pragmatic outlook with a genuine understanding of the individual objectives of our charity and not for profit clients.

Key Responsibilities

• You will be expected to handle your own caseload and support the lead partner on larger projects, encompassing the full range of charity law and governance issues alongside contributing to business development initiatives and supervising junior members of the team.
• Advising charity trustees on their duties and responsibilities.
• Advising on charity start-ups and registrations (including the appropriate structure for a new charity).
• Advising charities on all types of legal structure, including charitable companies, charitable incorporated organisations, royal charter corporations, statutory corporations, unincorporated associations and charitable trusts as well as community interest companies and other forms of social enterprise.
• Advising on constitutional reviews ensuring that charity clients are operating with a modern and appropriate legal structure and governing instrument, including making applications to the Commission for consent to regulated amendments and other issues related to restructuring requiring the Commission’s consent.
• Advising on all types of governance issues, including conflicts of interest, disputes and undertaking governance reviews and reviewing and drafting governance policies and procedures.
• Advising on strategic issues for charities, including the wide range of commercial issues they face, domestic and international growth and relationships with non-charitable entities.
• Advising on transactions including mergers between charities and other types of acquisition and disposal.
• Advising on grant agreements and fundraising matters.
• Advising on endowments and restricted funds.
• Advising on the serious incident reporting regime and drafting appropriate reports to the Charity Commission.
• Supporting other specialists on charity related issues, including where they arise in relation to critical incidents, property disposals, banking, insolvency and employment relationships.
• Advising on issues related to non-primary purpose trading and the use of trading subsidiaries and relationships between charities and their subsidiaries.
• Assisting with all business development activities and tender preparation.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• Excellent relationship and client handling skills. Able to deal confidently and professionally with clients on day to day issues. Able to demonstrate a reasonable level of self-sufficiency, combined with an awareness of the boundaries of own competence/authority.
• Strong technical skills and an ability to understand and work through complex issues.
• Team oriented and collegiate with experience of and a willingness to mentor, coach and supervise less experienced members of the team.
• Exposure to (and success within) business development activities.
• Confident communicator with an ability to develop relationships, undertake client marketing.
• In-House Charity experience can be considered.
• Flexible on location.

We are happy to talk flexible working with our Flex Forward scheme. We would encourage you to talk to us about our approach to flexible working during the hiring process if you would like to explore this further.

DAC Beachcroft is an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applications from all sections of the community.