Head of Legal in London

As Head of Legal you will be Shieldpay's primary legal expert. This is a high-impact, "player-coach" role requiring a hands-on professional who can provide senior-leader strategic advice while building a modern, automated legal function from the ground up. You will ensure the business scales safely into new markets while maintaining a lean, tech-forward approach to legal operations.

What You'll Be Doing

• Executive and Board Advisory: Provide high-stakes strategic advice to the Executive team and Board on critical direction matters, including Cap Table management, future fundraising activities, and the mitigation of material non-compliance.
• Legal Strategy and Governance: Define and execute a global legal strategy that aligns with company mission, ensuring regulatory compliance while managing external counsel for specialised litigation and court representation.
• Tech-Forward Legal Operations: Drive efficiency by implementing automation and process innovation (LegalOps), ensuring that business-focused advice is integrated directly into the product lifecycle.
• Strategic Expansion: Lead the legal framework for scaling into new markets, navigating requirements and adapting Shieldpay's legal structure for wider success.
• Compliance and Market Expansion: Partner with Risk and Compliance functions to maintain robust regulatory frameworks ensuring seamless adherence to diverse legal requirements across all active jurisdictions.
• Counsel Oversight: Act as the primary accountable lead for external legal relationships across key corporate pillars, including Share Option Schemes, Data Protection, IP management, Property leasing, Pre-litigation disputes, and Shareholder administration and commercial pillars such as pricing and partnerships.
• Strategic Team Growth: Monitor and manage the escalation of commercial workloads, with the potential to recruit and lead others to support increased Customer and Supplier contracting demands.
• Influence and Scaling: Represent Shieldpay to regulators and industry stakeholders to influence policy while designing the blueprint for building and training a future team of legal experts.

What We're Looking For In You

• 5+ years PQE with a strong foundation from a top-tier private practice and mandatory in-house experience within a fast-paced environment.
• Hands-on experience in the Payments industry is essential; you must be able to lead this space independently.
• Knowledge of the specific laws and regulations governing the UK Fintech space and a strong grasp of UK local law.
• You must be energized by the prospect of being a "team of one" initially. This role requires a practitioner who can execute the day-to-day legal work while simultaneously building the function's long-term strategy.
• A "roll with the punches" mindset is vital. You are comfortable with ambiguity, understand that processes won't always be perfect, and possess the commercial maturity to balance legal risk against business growth.
• A demonstrated interest in LegalTech with a proactive approach to using automation and smart tools to manage a high-volume workload efficiently.
• Commercial Acumen: Experience in a commercially oriented role; awareness to interpret how market forces and economics impact the regulatory landscape while translating complex legalities into actionable recommendations for Senior Management.
• Leadership: The ability to delegate effectively to external counsel now, and the vision to recruit and mentor an internal team of experts as needs evolve.

Our Promise

Shieldpay is an equal opportunities employer. For Shieldpay building a fair and transparent workforce begins with the recruitment process that does not discriminate on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, pregnancy or maternity, gender reassignment, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, disability or age. We offer flexible working options, such as flexible hours and hybrid work, to support our employees' work-life balance.

Shieldpay Limited: Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Payment Services Regulations 2017 (Reference number 770210) as an authorised payments institution. Shieldpay is a company providing simple and transparent payment solutions across the legal, financial, and professional services industries. The firm offers Third-Party Managed Accounts, Escrow facilities and payment agent services.

Shieldpay Trust Services Limited: Registered with HMRC as a trust service provider (Reference XPML00000158706) and provides the services as a corporate trustee to the beneficiaries of the trust, established by deed, in connection with escrow transactions.

Registered Address for our Group Companies is 3rd Floor, 1 Ashley Road, Altrincham, Cheshire, WA14 2DT.