Legal Counsel - 12 Month FTC in Edinburgh

We are seeking a Legal Counsel to add to our busy in-house team. You will have had experience either in-house or in private practice dealing with legal matters, including commercial contracts. The role will involve drafting and negotiating contracts for our various business areas within the firm, generally with or supporting our pension, employer and financial services clients.

You will have relevant post qualified practice based and/or in-house experience. Experience in financial services or pensions or with a professional services firm would be an advantage as would experience with financial advisers/platforms/asset managers/insurers, in the retail financial market.

You will act as an internal consultant and as such, will have extensive dealings directly with the consultants in the firm, including our Partners. So, it’s important that you are confident and have the necessary expertise and ability to quickly gain credibility and work autonomously. It will require flexibility to enable support to often deadline-driven work.

We would be happy for you to work in either our Edinburgh or Glasgow office and we support flexible/agile working (which includes working from home for part of your week and flexible start/end times subject to certain core business hours).

As part of our busy legal team, your day-to-day responsibilities will be to:

• Develop knowledge and understanding of key area’s propositions, core business and associated risks and work with that area to shape solutions that meet requirements.
• Draft, review, negotiate and advise on a wide variety of commercial contracts for our full range of professional services, consulting, online and data services, including tender responses, master services agreements, client contracts, licences, data protection agreements, non-reliance letters and supplier agreements.
• Draft best practice notes on topical issues for use across the firm, develop and maintain processes, policies, guidance and templates and assist in training.
• Support proposition and client-based projects with legal advice.
• Support and help drive Legal team initiatives.
• Positively contribute to the legal team, creating a professional, effective, high quality and approachable resource for the business.

To enjoy and succeed in this role, you will have:

• Pragmatic and solutions driven.
• Flexible and adaptable.
• Logical and organised.
• Excellent communication, presentation and interpersonal skills.
• Able to take on responsibility and to quickly gain credibility.
• Able to use your initiative and work individually or as part of a team.
• Able to take a pro-active approach and present new ideas and ways of working.
• Motivated by working under pressure and to tight timescales.
• Passionate about learning and personal development.

• Essential: A qualified Solicitor in Scotland or England with material experience in commercial contract drafting and negotiation. Relevant practice based and/or in-house experience, ideally in an FCA regulated environment or financial services, pensions or professional services firm. Proven ability to deliver on projects and initiatives and provide workable solutions.
• Preferred: Exposure to the pensions or wider financial services industry. Good working knowledge of IT systems, such as SharePoint, Dynamics 365 and Co-Pilot.

We would also encourage applications from candidates who perhaps do not possess all the attributes and experience listed above but are competent with the majority and would be able to quickly develop the additional skills and experience required in post with our full support. We would also love to hear about other knowledge and experience you may have that is not listed but could be of interest.

In addition to a competitive salary, we offer:

• A flexible selection of employee benefits, so you can choose a package that best matches your lifestyle and needs.
• A collaborative and encouraging work environment where your thinking and ideas are encouraged.
• On site mental health and wellbeing assistance.
• A commitment to helping you develop both personally and professionally, with mentoring opportunities and access to our award-winning learning portal, Aspire.
• Regular social activities, in addition to three days paid volunteering leave each year and a day’s leave to celebrate your birthday.
• Hybrid working so you can enjoy the positive wellbeing of working from home as well as the benefits of meeting colleagues in our sociable, modern office environments – with the expectation of two 'in-office' days per week.
• A flexible working window, allowing colleagues the freedom to work flexibly between the hours of 7am and 7pm.

Please note, we recruit on a rolling basis so early applications are recommended to avoid disappointment.