Legal Counsel - Pensions/Commercial

About People’s Partnership: At the heart of our not-for-profit organisation is a commitment and a motivation to make the future-saving experience a simple one for our members. We champion fairness and simplicity, not profit-chasing. Imagine a financial adventure where everyone's a winner, fuelled by our exceptional service and brought to life by the fantastic individuals who work for us. We’re a diverse employer with a flexible, hybrid working approach, ensuring everyone gets the opportunity to come to work and be the best version of themselves.

What you’ll be doing: The role is focused on the provision of pensions legal advice, taking ownership and accountability for providing commercial and practical solutions that help drive the business forward. The Legal Counsel will be responsible for dealing with requests from the Trustees of the pension schemes and proposals from the business’ internal teams (such as Propositions and Business Development), as well as providing ad hoc legal advice to the wider business. As part of the wider legal team, the Legal Counsel will be required to assist on a broad range of commercial, corporate, and other legal issues.

They will be expected to support key stakeholders, projects and department activities, ensuring that the business’, and where not in conflict with the business, the Trustees’ interests are protected (taking account of their respective risk appetites).

• To be a subject matter expert in pensions and to provide comprehensive, pragmatic and timely legal advice and guidance to the business, management and staff on legal issues affecting them.
• Identifying, managing and mitigating legal risks, including disputes and litigation.
• Drafting, reviewing and negotiating documents with third parties.
• Preparing internal briefing papers.
• Monitoring the impact of regulatory frameworks and other relevant legislation affecting the organisation in its pensions activities and ensuring business areas understand any relevant potential impact.
• Contributing to the development of new and existing template documents and precedents, ensuring they reflect the organisation’s risk appetite and are in line with current legislation and best practice.
• Working closely with key stakeholders to develop processes and procedures in line with the team’s cross-business focus.

What we’re looking for:

• UK qualified lawyer (or overseas equivalent) with substantial post qualification experience within a commercial, financial and/or pensions environment.
• Experience of providing legal advice in relation to pensions or general commercial matters.
• Experience of providing legal advice in a secondary area of law relevant to the business such as procurement, investment, litigation and/or data protection law.
• Excellent standard of communication skills – orally, in reports and in presentations.
• Analytical with excellent judgement and strong attention to detail.
• Proven ability to manage internal and external stakeholders - able to communicate at all levels across the business.
• Comprehensive knowledge of the law and regulation as it applies to pensions law.

What you can expect from us:

• Generous pension contributions with an employer contribution of up to 14%.
• Real living wage.
• Income protection, critical illness cover & death in service insurance.
• Employee healthcare.
• Parental and adoption leave.
• Learning & development opportunities and study support.
• Travel season ticket loans.
• Subsidised restaurant in our Crawley office.
• Volunteering days and charity payroll giving.
• Onsite gym.
• Ride-to-Work scheme.
• Social clubs and events.

Disability Statement: People’s Partnership is an equal opportunities employer. We believe everyone has the right to be treated fairly, with dignity and respect. We are committed to treating all our people (and all who apply for a role at People’s Partnership) equally and enabling them to perform at their best and demonstrate what they have to offer. We are a disability committed employer, please let us know if you need any reasonable adjustments made to our recruitment process (application, selection assessments where relevant, and interview) to enable you to show us the best “you”.