Senior Legal Counsel - Digital/Media Rights Focussed - 12m FTC

We are seeking a highly motivated senior commercial lawyer with between 7 and 10 years’ post qualification experience to join the Commercial Legal team on a one-year fixed term contract. The ideal candidate will have significant linear media rights and/or OTT licensing/distribution experience, and we would anticipate that this would include some period of time and experience in an in-house environment.

Formula 1’s Commercial Legal Team is responsible for the legal work associated with supporting Formula 1’s revenue generating agreements with broadcasters, sponsors and licensees (including experiential and gaming partners), its marketing activities, operation of streaming platform F1TV and agreements with key service providers.

You will join a team of seven lawyers and two paralegals, overseen by the Chief Counsel, Commercial and will provide supervision and support to the junior members of the team.

As a senior lawyer in the Commercial Legal team, you will be responsible for drafting and negotiating a wide variety of media rights agreements, ranging from distribution of live Formula 1 event programming to ancillary agreements relating to documentary projects, feature films and TV series, and related agreements authorising content capture on behalf of existing F1 partners, as well as digital media rights agreements relating to the distribution/syndication of Formula 1’s OTT service. You may also be involved with the drafting and negotiation of sponsorship agreements, product and experiential licence agreements, and complex services agreements, such as those relating to website development or broadcast delivery.

You will support on the following workstreams:

• Day-to-day operation of Formula 1’s OTT service and other digital operations, analysing and providing comprehensive advice and practical recommendations to the business on the consumer, broadcast, data protection, and other regulatory considerations impacting the services, including advising on user journeys, terms and conditions, marketing materials, price promotions, etc.
• Supporting the Production team in relation to in-bound photography, music and audio-visual licences, location and contributor release forms, assignment of audio-visual content and related agreements.
• Ad hoc advice and agreements supporting the Marketing, Advertising Sales and Digital teams.
• Supporting the Procurement team in relation to agreements for the provision of goods and services, as well as data processing/sharing agreements.

Candidates will be able to demonstrate the following experience:

• Training and post-qualification experience at a leading law firm (e.g. City, US or West End law firm) or post-qualification experience within a reputable in-house legal team.
• Experience of working across a variety of commercial contracts with particular emphasis on digital and media rights and solid experience of legal drafting.
• Experience supervising junior lawyers/paralegals.

We would like to meet candidates who:

• Thrive in a fast-paced environment, are agile, and can manage multiple workstreams simultaneously and deliver results under pressure to a deadline.
• Have excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to effectively communicate legal concepts to non-legal stakeholders.
• Prides themselves on having a high degree of attention to detail.
• Are team players and understand the importance of building relationships with internal clients, peers and external partners.
• Are enthusiastic, have a can-do attitude and a willingness to expand their skillset.
• Take responsibility for their own workstreams and are solution-orientated problem-solvers.
• Are prepared to invest in learning about the business of Formula 1 (recognising it will take time for new recruits to fully understand Formula 1’s various revenue streams and how Formula 1 contracts with its various partners).