Vice President, Legal Counsel, Global Funds Team

The new Legal Counsel will join LaSalle’s Global Funds Team (GFT) reporting to the Global Funds Counsel. GFT is a sophisticated legal team sitting alongside the global Legal & Compliance team of LaSalle and JLL. This team is highly specialized on fund structuring, fund setup and investor onboarding. GFT also supports product development as part of the product development core group. This role is global but based in London.

As GFT Legal Counsel, the primary responsibility of this role will be to support the business in all legal aspects of the product development, fund structuring and fundraising lifecycle for a number of existing and new LaSalle products (commingled funds and tailored cross border separate accounts). At LaSalle, GFT takes the lead for the project management of the fund launch making this an exciting and commercial legal role. The new Legal Counsel will need to establish a close working relationship with stakeholders across the business to become a trusted partner able to contribute to the goals of the business by combining their excellent legal knowledge and project management skills with a commercial approach.

Main stakeholders are LaSalle’s Marketing and Investor Relations (IR) teams and various LaSalle fund and portfolio managers around the globe. This position is also expected to work closely and on a daily basis with our regional tax teams, our regional legal and compliance teams, LaSalle’s finance teams and LaSalle’s AIFM in Luxembourg.

Responsibilities:

• Product Development Support: Cooperating with Marketing, IR, the fund teams and Research to develop new fund products.
• Creating or managing the custody of overviews/databanks for fund key terms, IR client feedback and other legal/market know-how which is relevant to the business.
• Anticipating market developments resulting from changes of laws and regulations, educating the business teams about these changes and developing product ideas based on these changes.
• Initial Fund Structuring: Leading the process to draft and agree a term sheet and structure chart with all relevant parties.
• Setting up the project plan and time schedule for the fund formation.
• Advising the business team regarding the fund structure depending on target investors and type and jurisdiction of the fund target assets together with our regional tax teams.
• Advising the fund teams regarding the selection of SFDR/SFDR2 categorizations and a LaSalle Net Zero Pathway.
• Advising and supporting Marketing and IR with the creation of global marketing products.
• Drafting and reviewing the legal parts of the INREV DDQ and Investor DDQs.
• Fund Set up and Fund Launch: Leading the project management for fund formation and fund launch.
• Leading the preparation of key legal documents together with external counsel and reviewing while maintaining consistency with LaSalle standard key term and clauses.
• Supporting the set-up of the fund structure with regional legal teams and external service providers.
• Coordinating the actual fund launch with internal and external parties.
• Investor Onboarding: Leading and organising the negotiations with the investors.
• Coordinating onboarding process with the tax, compliance, and investor services team.
• Supporting disclosure documents together with external counsel.
• Coordinating “closings” of mandates and funds.
• Ongoing support of our fund products: Advising on the application of new legislation and regulations.
• Working with portfolio and fund managers regarding queries in respect of the ongoing operation of LaSalle products.
• Serving as the internal resource and gatekeeper for certain legal queries.
• Assisting on an ad hoc basis with other service provider agreements.
• Employee Co-Investment Programme and Carried Interest Issuances: Advising the employee co-investment team on the legal and regulatory aspects of LaSalle's employee co-investment programme.
• Managing new offerings under the employee co-investment programme.
• Periodic assistance with the issuance of carried interest or team share points.
• Managing external Law firms: Building strong relationships with and managing LaSalle’s panel of outside counsel.

Required Qualifications & Experience:

• Between four - six years’ experience as a funds lawyer in an in-house environment for an investment manager, or within an international law firm.
• Private equity, credit and/or real estate funds experience required.
• Must be able to demonstrate high familiarity with key fund terms and broader issues relevant to the private equity, credit and/or real estate funds industry.
• Must show strong project management and communication skills.
• Good working knowledge of the regulatory framework relating to investment management.
• Excellent collaboration and confident stakeholder management skills.
• Strong drafting skills and must be prepared to get involved with review/preparation of a wide variety of fund documents.
• Organized, methodical, pro-active and able to work independently.
• Demonstrated strategic and innovative thinking skills.
• Strong desire to learn and develop.
• Proficiency in leveraging AI tools and technology solutions to enhance legal workflows.
• Periodic travel as necessary.

LaSalle is an Equal Opportunity Employer and encourages applications from all sections of the community.