Assistant Commercial Solicitor - Engineering & Construction

Job Title: Assistant Commercial Solicitor (Engineering & Construction) – non-contentious

Location: Falmer, Brighton (hybrid 2-3 days p/w)

Contract Type: Permanent

Hours: 37, Monday to Friday

Salary: £competitive

There has never been a better time to join our organisation as we build towards a greener future, tackling climate change, minimising our environmental impact and reducing our carbon footprint!

Job Overview

To provide high quality commercial legal services (engineering and construction) to enable delivery of various capital, operational and infrastructure programmes, particularly those matters relating to AMP8 (and future AMPs) and company turnaround capital projects, to Southern Water through:

• supporting the senior specialist E&C Commercial Solicitor on high value and complex capital projects, and in advising on technically challenging and highly specialist engineering and construction projects, working with, advising and supporting project teams and operational functions
• advising the company on the legal ramifications and structuring of various engineering and construction arrangements and diverse commercial projects, transactions and contracts involving engineering and/or construction issues;
• focussing on the full remit of non-contentious engineering and construction matters relating to infrastructure and non-infrastructure projects;
• providing technical drafting, negotiation and settling of various forms of construction and engineering industry contractual documentation – particularly the NEC4 suite of contracts;
• engaging with and supporting the Head of Commercial (E&C Contracts Management) and the wider Commercial Team to strengthen pre-contract decision making and proactive commercial management.

About You

• Good knowledge of law and legal research techniques, engineering & construction contracts drafting and interpretation.
• Good knowledge of public procurement law and practice desirable, but not essential.
• Has good legal judgement and appreciates legal risk.
• Good legal training, with demonstrable evidence of sound engineering and construction commercial legal experience.
• Previous in-house experience not necessary but would be welcome.
• Good IT skills, including electronic document production and assembly skills.
• Self-starter with ability to work as part of a team and to work proactively across and with a number of other functions.
• Qualified lawyer (Solicitor/Barrister/Chartered Legal Executive) with, ideally, 4 years or more relevant post-qualification experience.

Package

This role will be full time Monday to Friday with a hybrid approach to working between our Falmer office and home. We are offering a competitive salary depending on skills and experience as well as other benefits including:

• Generous pension up to 11% company contribution
• 25 days annual leave
• Life assurance equal to 4x salary
• Salary sacrifice electric car scheme (after 6 months service)
• Health Cash Plan
• Full funded eye tests
• Two paid volunteering days a year
• Occupational health service
• Discounts with over 800 popular retailers
• Digital GP service
• Study support may be available for job-related qualifications
• Competitive maternity leave and flexible return to work options
• Cycle to work scheme

Join our Legal team and see how far your career could progress with a company committed to career progression, training and development opportunities, our customers and the environment.

Does this opportunity excite you but you’re not 100% sure if you meet all the requirements for the role? Or are you concerned that ‘normal’ office hours aren’t possible given your personal circumstances? Whilst we can’t accommodate every flexible working request, we’ll try to find a practical solution. So why not engage with us and find out more about this role?

Our customers are at the heart of everything we do, because delivering water for life is our core purpose. To achieve this, we need 24/7 support in place to resolve incidents quickly and efficiently. All our employees understand the importance of out-of-hours incident support – because when problems appear, fixing them is our top priority. That’s why our people join together and support when and however needed to make sure our customers get the service they deserve. Joining the Southern Water family means you’ll become part of our incident support team. During your interview, your manager will speak to you about any incident support rotas that apply to your position.