Commercial Lawyer

Legal Counsel – Commercial contracts lawyer

£60,000 - £65,000 + benefits

12 months fixed term contract

Full time (35 hours per week)

Wimbledon (flexible and hybrid working)

About us

We’ve been championing better work and working lives for over 100 years. We help organisations thrive by focusing on their people, supporting our economies and societies. We’re the professional body for HR, L&D, OD and all people professionals – experts in people, work and change. With over 160,000 members globally – and a growing community using our research, insights and learning – we give trusted advice and offer independent thought leadership. And we are a leading voice in the call for good work that creates value for everyone.

There has never been a more interesting or important time to join us. We offer an inclusive and stimulating culture and a wide range of professional development opportunities, as well as excellent benefits such as 28 days’ holiday with an option to buy and sell days, personal development allowance, access to an award winning pension scheme and a commitment to wellbeing including a cashback health scheme.

The role

As a Legal Counsel, you will provide professional legal services and business focussed advice on a wide range of contracts and commercial issues across all CIPD group entities.

What you’ll be doing

• Responsible for reviewing, drafting and negotiating a broad and diverse range of contracts with our service partners and suppliers (key strategic projects; supplier agreements; MOUs; NDAs; IP licences; collaboration agreements, IT contracts/SaaS agreements);
• Supporting the Legal team to manage the CIPD’s data protection compliance framework including, leading a network of data champions across the organisation, advising on data privacy issues, drafting and reviewing data processing agreements to ensure CIPD and its suppliers are compliant with the EU & UK GDPR, handling data protection related queries and information requests from data subjects.
• Responsible for providing timely, practical and commercially sound legal advice on contentious and non-contentious issues to internal stakeholders and helping to enable decision-making and formulate strategy.
• Advising on intellectual property matters including trademark and copyright infringement issues.
• Providing support to the legal team and the Head of Legal when required.

What you’ll need to be successful

• Qualified solicitor (England & Wales) with post qualification experience.
• Good working knowledge of contract & commercial law with a strong experience of drafting and advising on a wide variety of general commercial contracts.
• Experience of advising on data privacy and compliance issues and experience advising on privacy issues in multiple jurisdictions. CIPD has presence globally in UAE, Singapore and Ireland.
• Good working knowledge of rights relating to and dealings in soft Intellectual Property, particularly copyright and data (non-contentious).
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills with stakeholders at all levels.
• Business focused and risk aware; ability to use own initiative and technical expertise to provide practical solutions.
• The role entails liaising with people at all levels and explaining legal terms in a digestible format. A strong team player with the ability to work flexibly and to tight deadlines as well as being able to work independently and efficiently.

If this role describes you and your career aspirations, click APPLY!

CIPD: valuing everyone as an individual! The CIPD define diversity as the differences in colour, ethnicity, abilities, age, gender, beliefs, interests, socioeconomic status(class), marital or partnership status, sexual orientation, geographic, academic/professional backgrounds, opinions, backgrounds, thinking, experiences, and many other personal characteristics. There is a growing body of research that shows that diverse workforce can be beneficial for decision making, innovation and problem solving as people bring a diverse range of skills and lived experiences with them. Harnessing these differences creates a productive environment in which everybody feels valued, where their talents are fully utilised and organisational and personal goals are met.

We are committed to employment practices that promote diversity and inclusion and equality of outcomes in employment through recognising of how differences of age, disability, gender, sex, marriage and civil partnership status, pregnancy and maternity status, ethnicity, colour, religion, or belief and other protected (by equalities law) and personal characteristics can advantage or disadvantage a person.

Please note, we reserve the right to close or extend this position depending on application numbers. Therefore, we would urge you to submit an application as soon as possible.