Senior Manager/Manager, Legal & Business Affairs in London

We are West One Music Group, a global production music company dedicated to bringing visuals to life with a diverse and authentic music catalogue crafted by our creative community. Proudly independent since 2002, we have offices and production studios in 15 countries, 18 unique labels and a custom music division.

We are looking for a hands-on, commercially driven legal practitioner to support the delivery of legal and business affairs activity across our international publishing operations. This role is suited to a qualified solicitor (typically 2–4 PQE, or equivalent experience) with strong music publishing expertise. Reporting into the Global Head of Legal & Business Affairs, Royalties & Copyright, the successful candidate will take ownership of a high volume of day-to-day drafting, negotiation and contract execution, working across multiple territories and stakeholder groups.

Key Responsibilities

• Drafting, reviewing and negotiating a wide range of music, media and technology-related agreements
• Taking ownership of the day-to-day contracting workflow, ensuring agreements are progressed efficiently from negotiation through to execution
• Accurately record, summarise and communicate key commercial and legal deal terms to internal stakeholders
• Provide practical, commercially-minded legal guidance that enables the business to move quickly while protecting and maximising the value of WOMG’s rights
• Proactively identify and resolve deal blockers where commercial opportunities do not align with precedent or standard industry norms
• Advise on relevant compliance matters, including anti-bribery and anti-corruption, data protection, and adherence to collecting society rules and regulations
• Support the organisation in monitoring and navigating legal and regulatory developments, with a particular focus on AI regulation
• Develop and maintain internal legal resources, including templates, guidance documents, deal pipelines and workflows, to support efficiency and scalability

Why this role is distinctive

This is a genuine, no-two-days-are-the-same opportunity: You’ll be at the centre of how WOMG turns ambitious ideas into real, operationally successful music projects. One day, you might be helping launch a new joint label with a creative partner: shaping the commercial terms, negotiating the deal framework, putting the right agreements in place with composers, producers, musicians, recording studios and album art designers, and making sure the business is set up to deliver from day one. Another day, you might be working on a complex licensing arrangement with an international broadcaster, enabling our music to be used across high-profile content around the world, or negotiating a SaaS agreement with a technology supplier that helps us modernise the way we manage rights, royalties, data and operations. In each case, you’ll be helping connect the commercial opportunity with the legal structure and operational detail needed to make it work in practice.

This is not a role where you sit on the sidelines reviewing contracts in isolation. You’ll be working directly with Production, Sales, Creative, Royalties, Copyright, Finance and Operations to build the legal and commercial infrastructure behind new partnerships, catalogues and releases. You’ll help create the frameworks that allow great music to be commissioned, released, exploited and reported properly across the world, combining sharp legal judgement with the confidence to drive projects forward and make things happen.

Candidate Profile

You should be a qualified solicitor with 2–4 years’ PQE (or equivalent), ideally including some in-house exposure. You should have a strong understanding of the global music publishing industry, with experience in production music and/or the wider media or technology sectors being highly desirable. You should also bring excellent drafting and negotiation skills, with the ability to manage multiple matters concurrently; and be commercially astute, pragmatic and solutions-oriented. PQE ranges are given as a guide only. All candidates who can demonstrate the requisite experience will also be considered.

West One are committed to inclusion and diversity; are proud to provide equal opportunity workplaces; and we will evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, religion or belief, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or gender assignment, marital or civil partnership status, disability, pregnancy, childbirth or any other characteristic protected by law.

Please send your CV to our retained agent Nick Wasserman of Handle Recruitment using the link provided. Please note that any direct applications will be forwarded to Handle for their consideration on our behalf. All successful candidates will be contacted within 5 working days of application. Due to the high volume of applications we receive, though, we are not always able to respond directly to everyone, but we will try our very best.

No Agencies.