Senior Legal Counsel (Maternity Cover)

The Behavioural Insights Team

Location Based in Westminster (but working remotely until government guidelines change)
Salary Salary range: £65,000 - £80,000 per annum, plus benefits
  • Closing: 12:00pm, 26th Oct 2020 GMT

Job Description

Start date: No later than 4 January 2020 but potentially earlier (e.g. Mid-November onwards) if a candidate is available


Are you looking for a diverse and fast-paced role and want to support the business of a successful and rapidly growing organisation? Do you have a passion for providing pragmatic and creative legal advice on a diverse range of topics to a wide stakeholder base? If so, we want to hear from you.

What does a Senior Legal Counsel do?

This role is in our small legal team (you plus the General Counsel) which sits within our wider operations team. This team also has responsibility for privacy and legal compliance and company secretarial duties. You will be predominantly supporting the UK business across its entire range of activities. However, flexibility is key, as you will need to provide some legal support and engage with colleagues in Australia, NZ, Paris, Singapore and the USA on a frequent basis. Your role will entail the following: 

LEGAL: Responsible for supporting the General Counsel in delivering legal support to all areas of the BIT business on a global basis.  You will seek external support, where required, but this will be the exception and not the norm. The key elements are comprised of:

  • contractual negotiations and management;

  • third party outsourcing contracts e.g. external legal suppliers, IT suppliers and consultants etc;

  • data protection and privacy e.g. drafting and negotiating data processing and data sharing agreements;

  • managing any disputes and litigation (customer and supplier);

  • protection of IP portfolio and advise on any issues relating to copyright, trademarks and web domain use

TRAINING: Designing and delivering training to the organisation in relation to key legal and compliance areas such as data protection, anti-bribery and conflicts of interest.

BIDS AND PROPOSALS:  Advising on and reviewing tender documentation (RFPs) received from prospective customers and reviewing from the legal perspective responses to such tenders and (where applicable) providing advice on public procurement and contracting strategy and structuring options (e.g. subcontracting arrangements).

RISK MANAGEMENT: Supporting the General Counsel on the risk management function, including advising the company and the FD on the risks, including litigation, of possible business decisions and offering advice on how to best manage those risks.

EMPLOYMENT: Supporting HR in relation to matters such as hiring contractors, drafting employment contract templates and employment-related policies.

MANAGING EXTERNAL COUNSEL: Ensure delivery of a cost-effective legal and Compliance strategy with minimal input required from external counsel and manage external counsel and budgets when engaged.

INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS SET- UP AND SUPPORT: Provision of legal and compliance support on establishment and ongoing operation of international offices.

COMMUNICATIONS: Partner with BIT’s communications team to ensure that public statements made on behalf of BIT or any publications by the media are accurate, represent BIT’s mission, enhance and/or protect BIT’s public image and minimise legal exposure. Provide advice and assistance on any FOIA requests that come from BIT’s public sector clients.

PROCESSES: Create and improve procedures and processes in the legal function e.g. creation of legal templates and guidance notes, assessment of innovative technological solutions.

INNOVATION: Be a trusted business partner for innovative teams in BIT such as the digital and data science teams and the growth team

What makes a great Senior Legal Counsel at BIT?

We are looking for candidates with the skills and qualifications listed below.

Qualifications: A lawyer qualified in England and Wales with a minimum of 4 years post qualification experience (PQE) (although ideally you will have more experience)  and preferably an individual with in-house experience.

Commercial: Experience in the commercial sector of managing/supporting corporate and commercial transactions, procurement and contracting processes.  This could be gained within a private practice and/or in house.

Government contracting and procurement: Ideally, knowledge and understanding of the operation of government contracts and procurement processes, which may have been gained through experience within the public sector or through working on government contracts within the commercial sector.

Privacy: Experience of advising in relation to data protection law 

International: Experience of working across a range of jurisdictions and the ability to identify key areas where commercial/contracting issues might arise and to plan appropriate strategies.

Broad knowledge: Knowledge and understanding of a wide range of legislation including freedom of information, data protection, contract/company law including the ability to source further research and expertise when required.

Innovative: A high level of innovative thinking and judgement to adapt to new demands where there may be no precedents, deal with complex/unusual business approaches, make quick risk assessments and determine the most appropriate course of action to take.

Influencing and negotiating: Strong influencing and negotiating skills used internally and externally with the ability to build relationships at all levels and work with the business to achieve its aims.

Flexibility and judgment: A very high level of flexibility and resilience to meet the needs of a dynamic organisation with ever more complex commercial arrangements combined with the ability to work autonomously with minimal direction and technical input, knowing when to take decisions and when to escalate.

Clear and convincing communications: You can explain complex topics in simple terms. You can lead a training session and write clearly and concisely.

Managing projects: You can manage your own time and have strong organisation, project management and planning skills to manage high workloads and competing priorities to produce high quality work at pace

Who are we and what can we offer you?

The Behavioural Insights Team is the world leader in applying behavioural science to public policy challenges in order to strengthen communities and improve lives. 

We design and rigorously test new ideas across a range of areas such as health, crime and education, to establish what works and what doesn’t. We have helped Tuberculosis patients take their medicine; reduced police susceptibility to cyberattacks; and helped organisations close their gender pay gap.

BIT really is a great place to work:

  • An IT set up which allows for easy working from home options

  • We have regular team lunches with inspirational guest speakers. 

  • We have a flexible benefits programme which currently includes things like gym memberships, cycle to work schemes and the ability to buy extra annual leave at the start of the year.

  • We’re a social bunch and have a variety of interest groups including Film Club, BIT Kids for our parents & 5-a-side team to name a few.

  • We have a great office in Westminster, which has an amazing coffee machine and fridges stocked full of soft drinks! Unfortunately due to Covid-19 we are currently working remotely but hope that will change during the course of next year (dependent on government guidelines).

How to apply

We use a great platform called Applied. You will need to answer a few work-based questions which will be anonymously marked by members of our team. Our selection is based on performance in these questions, combined with looking at your CV after this initial blinded process had been completed. 

Candidates with the top scoring answers will be invited to a structured interview where you get to meet some of the team. At the interview stage you will be asked questions that reflect the role and also to complete a work-based task, so you have the chance to demonstrate your skills. We always give all applicants feedback, no matter what stage your application reaches.

Start your BIT journey here: Link to Applied

Please note:

If you do not already hold the right to work in the UK and/or require sponsorship in order to continue working here, you should think carefully before applying. This is because we will be unable to sponsor you unless there is no other suitably qualified settled worker available to fill the role or your current immigration status means that the resident labour market test will not apply in your case.

Some of the personal data you provide to Applied when you apply for a role with The Behavioural Insights Team will be passed on to The Behavioural Insights Team for the purposes of (a) reviewing your application; (b) inviting you for interview; and/or (c) offering you a job and getting you set up as an employee/contractor. For full details on how BIT collects and uses your personal data please visit our website - https://www.bi.team/bit-global-recruitment-privacy-notice/ 

If your application is not successful, any personal data provided to us by Applied (including any personal data relating to equal opportunities monitoring as set out above) will be retained by The Behavioural Insights Team for no longer than 6 months after the application deadline has passed (other than in exceptional circumstances where we may need to retain your personal data for longer), at which point your personal data will be securely deleted. We only keep your information for that period in order to allow us to comply with relevant legal obligations.

Removing bias from the hiring process

Applications closed Mon 26th Oct 2020

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Removing bias from the hiring process

  • Your application will be anonymously reviewed by our hiring team to ensure fairness
  • You’ll need a CV/résumé, but it’ll only be considered if you score well on the anonymous review

Applications closed Mon 26th Oct 2020