Lead Counsel, Employment EMEA

Reporting to the Chief Counsel, EMEA, this role requires strong expertise in employment law and a drive for excellence. You will provide quality legal advice and proactive solutions to senior leaders in the EMEA HR team and other global stakeholders, including the Global Head of Employment Legal.

Working across all of Disney’s EMEA businesses, your practice will involve the full range of employment law advice including relating to organisational redesign at a macro level, ensuring compliance with new laws, complex investigations, disciplinaries and grievances, overseeing employment litigation. You will manage a dedicated legal budget and will need to develop and maintain strong remote relationships with external legal experts across EMEA.

You’ll join a team grounded in our Disney values — acting with Integrity, welcoming everyone through Inclusion, embracing boundless Creativity, working together through Collaboration and caring deeply for our Community. These values shape how we work and how we support one another every day.

This permanent position is based at our London Hammersmith office, requiring four days on-site each week, with the flexibility to work from home on either Monday or Friday.

Provide counsel and support on complex legal issues:

• Develop and execute strategic, commercially focussed legal advice in a clear and manageable way, managing risk to achieve outcomes that support the business’s strategic priorities on a long-term basis.

Specific responsibilities:

• Support local markets through a good understanding of employment law in EMEA (UK, EU, Norway, Turkey, Israel, Middle East and Africa) jurisdictions.
• Engage, instruct, motivate and manage external legal advisers so that the Company receives good value, relevant and effective advice.
• Advise and analyse and apply external legal advice, ensuring smart risk-based solutions are evaluated and discussed with senior stakeholders.
• Supervise and provide strategic guidance on the conduct of employment litigation in some countries in EMEA.
• Horizon Scanning: Understand the impact of upcoming regulations on and how they may affect the long-term future of the EMEA businesses. Provide guidance to ensure Disney is ready to meet those challenges to enable long term success.
• Provide advice to compensation & benefits and the global mobility teams.
• Collaborate effectively with the EMEA Privacy team on all aspects of the collection and processing of employee, worker and candidate data to manage data risks.
• Work closely with the contingent labour management team globally to ensure a compliant approach to engaging contingent labour.

• Significant and relevant post qualification experience, preferably including some time spent both in-house and in private practice covering the full range of employment law and practice.
• Thorough knowledge of employment law in the UK or another European country with strong proven experience of advising in a pan-European environment.
• Qualification in the UK or other European jurisdictions with a proven track record of advising in respect of employment law in a pan-European environment will also be considered.

• Strategic thinking and comfortable making important and nuanced decisions, assessing risks and opportunities, to enable the success of the Company whilst upholding high ethical standards and leading a team to do the same.
• Experience utilising an outside network to stay ahead of change.
• Assured self-starter able to work under pressure at the highest levels of the organisation and prioritise deadlines in a fast-paced business.
• Ability to work independently, and lead others with courage and optimism, coaching and mentoring team members.
• Strong analytical skills, including attention to detail and the ability to articulate and assess multiple options.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to build strong professional relationships, collaborative and skilled at navigating complex matrixed organisations.
• Confidence to challenge and provide practical advice in the face of complex circumstances and across multiple jurisdictions.
• Manage relationships with external legal advisers, ensuring effective collaboration and optimizing legal spend while maintaining high-quality services.

This role will be advertised until 22nd February. However, we reserve the right to close the posting earlier should we receive a high volume of applications.

The Walt Disney Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We strive to build a workforce that is representative of our audiences—where all people can thrive and belong. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds and are happy to discuss reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.