Site Name: UK - London - Brentford
Posted Date: Mar 1 2023

Assistant General Counsel, Litigation

Job purpose:

The Assistant General Counsel, Litigation role is responsible for actively executing litigation strategy across a broad and diverse portfolio of complex litigation in multiple areas, including product liability, class actions, government investigations, commercial disputes, and other litigation areas across many countries with emphasis and focus on EU and UK. The expectation for this role is to proactively set and drive litigation strategy, including leading and supervising external counsel. This role is also responsible for avoiding litigation and other disputes, through preventative and pragmatic legal advice, identification of potential risk areas, and driving early resolution of disputes/claims.

Key Responsibilities will be:

• Lead significant litigation, including driving litigation strategy and initiatives
• Develop and execute litigation strategy in areas of products liability, class actions, government/internal investigations, contract and commercial matters, and other areas. The role has responsibility across many jurisdictions, but with a focus on EU and UK. This includes active participation in and oversight of internal fact investigation, discovery responses, selection of experts, motion practice, preparation of witnesses, and trial strategy
• Represent GSK at meetings, mediations, and arbitrations
• Juggle numerous competing priorities and perform in a continually changing legal, regulatory, and scientific environment
• Interface with company at all levels, including General Counsel and other senior business and legal employees. Communicate effectively and build teamwork among company employees involved in defense of litigation
• Work closely with external counsel on appropriate matters to develop and drive overall litigation strategy, ensure compliance with company policies, and drive cost savings. In consultation with outside counsel, recommend and monitor financial reserves for lawsuits and investigations
• Conduct early case assessments and provide preventive legal advice to business clients and business sector attorneys to avoid potential litigation and/or by resolving disputes
• Demonstrate capacity for innovation in providing unique and creative solutions to complex legal issues

Basic qualifications:

• UK qualified attorney
• 8 years or more experience in a law firm or in-house setting
• Proven experience delivering legal advice to support business needs
• Extensive prior experience in providing legal advice and day-to-day oversight management of complex, global legal issues, regulation, and policy

Preferred qualifications:

If you have the following characteristics, it would be a plus:

• An approachable, down-to-earth, straightforward, resilient, and persuasive personality with strong negotiation, communication and influencing skills and an ability to drive change
• A self-confident, well-organized, proactive self-starter, who will roll up his or her sleeves and delve into the detail on key business issues
• The strength of character to speak his or her mind, combined with the sensitivity, judgement, and tact to know when to insist and when to pull back
• Unquestioned ethics and integrity. High energy and drive
• Ability to operate at a strategic management level. Can demonstrate senior executive level credibility and has the requisite presence to influence and build a rapport with senior leaders
• Leader with powers of persuasion and effective negotiation skills
• Strong commercial understanding and a proven track record of providing incisive and confidential legal support and guidance to senior leaders on complex business issues
• Proven problem solving and analytical skills seen as a problem-solver but prepared to stand up in the interests of the company
• Persuasive advocate within GSK Legal to garner support for a consensus on a unified legal interpretation of complex/ambiguous legal issues

Why GSK?

Our values and expectations are at the heart of everything we do and form an important part of our culture. These include Patient focus, Transparency, Respect, Integrity along with Courage, Accountability, Development, and Teamwork. As GSK focuses on our values and expectations and a culture of innovation, performance, and trust, the successful candidate will demonstrate the following capabilities:

• Agile and distributed decision-making – using evidence and applying judgement to balance pace, rigour and risk, governance, and control, managing ambiguity and paradox
• Managing individual performance
• Creating a performance culture and driving results, prioritisation, execution, delivering performance

• Setting strategic direction and leading on-going organisational transformation
• Building a resilient organisation
• Building strong relationships and collaboration in service of common goals, engaging the organisation, and building trusted external networks for mutual benefit
• Managing P&L and capital allocation

Inclusion and diversity at GSK are key for our success. Here, you will thrive through bringing your unique experiences to both our company and the recruitment process. We want you to be you, feel good and keep growing your career.

GSK is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer. Applicants will travel through a transparent recruitment journey that adheres to all required employment standards and regulations. Beyond this, we commit to our values of integrity and respect towards every applicant.

• LI-GSK

GSK is a global biopharma company with a special purpose – to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together – so we can positively impact the health of billions of people and deliver stronger, more sustainable shareholder returns – as an organisation where people can thrive. Getting ahead means preventing disease as well as treating it, and we aim to impact the health of 2.5 billion people around the world in the next 10 years.

Our success absolutely depends on our people. While getting ahead of disease together is about our ambition for patients and shareholders, it’s also about making GSK a place where people can thrive. We want GSK to be a workplace where everyone can feel a sense of belonging and thrive as set out in our Equal and Inclusive Treatment of Employees policy. We’re committed to being more proactive at all levels so that our workforce reflects the communities we work and hire in, and our GSK leadership reflects our GSK workforce.

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we are open to all talent. In the US, we also adhere to Affirmative Action principles. This ensures that all qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment without regard to neurodiversity, race/ethnicity, colour, national origin, religion, gender, pregnancy, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, age, disability, genetic information, military service, covered/protected veteran status or any other federal, state or local protected class*(*US only).

We believe in an agile working culture for all our roles. If flexibility is important to you, we encourage you to explore with our hiring team what the opportunities are.

Should you require any adjustments to our process to assist you in demonstrating your strengths and capabilities contact us on [email protected] or 0808 234 4391. Please note should your enquiry not relate to adjustments, we will not be able to support you through these channels

As you apply, we will ask you to share some personal information which is entirely voluntary. We want to have an opportunity to consider a diverse pool of qualified candidates and this information will assist us in meeting that objective and in understanding how well we are doing against our inclusion and diversity ambitions. We would really appreciate it if you could take a few moments to complete it. Rest assured, Hiring Managers do not have access to this information and we will treat your information confidentially.

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