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Summary

Grade: 4
Contract Type: Permanent
Location: Wood Street, London
Reporting to: Head of Legal - IT Procurement
Division: Legal, Compliance & Governance
Closing Date: 7th July 2023

The Purpose of the Role

This is a key role that is responsible for managing legal risks within the Post Office. The Legal Department is responsible for managing all aspects of legal risk, identifying and solving strategic and operational legal issues and providing understandable, accurate and timely advice (often with short deadlines and limited resource) to the business on a very wide-ranging and changing set of complex issues, many of which are novel.
A critical part of the role will be to work proactively with stakeholders to ensure that legal input is obtained on all relevant projects and other matters.
In addition, the purpose of this role is to support the Heads of Legal achieve their strategic objectives.
The role requires an ability to identify and solve strategic and operational legal issues and provide understandable, accurate and timely advice to the business on a very wide-ranging and changing set of complex issues, many of which are novel. A critical part of the role will be to work proactively with stakeholders to ensure that legal input is obtained on all relevant projects and other matters.
Additionally, the role will support the Legal Team achieve their strategic objectives, for which the incumbent will be required to work closely with his/her line manager, Heads of Legal and colleagues across the Legal function.
Consequently, the role will require the candidate to demonstrate significant specialist legal expertise, relevant to the industry sector(s) they support and leadership behaviours.

Principal Accountabilities

• Proactively manage legal risk within the business’ appetite and identify opportunities for improvement to the Post Office’s legal framework;
• Ensure that the business operates within its governance processes and legal risk appetite (balancing legal/regulatory risks against commercia/operational risks and objectives);
• Identify the most efficient and appropriate mix of internal and external legal spend to ensure that costs are sensibly controlled;
• Drafting and negotiation of low-mid and complex/high value contracts
• Where appropriate, instruct and manage external counsel in order to ensure relevant legal advice is obtained in a timely and cost-efficient manner and with the strict observance of the Legal Team Law Firms Panel policies and other appropriate Group policies and financial controls;
• Proactively ensure compliance with relevant legislative, regulatory and contractual requirements;
• Proactive identification and ownership of delivery on opportunities to improve functional management within the team (e.g. designing and implementing precedents, standardised contracts, and other tools and processes to ensure that legal resource is used efficiently and effectively, supporting on delivery of training within LCG Academy); and
• Provide reporting following the Legal team reporting processes, preparing briefing notes and updates (where appropriate) to the Head of Legal, Legal Director and General Counsel, preparing Legal Risk Notes and presenting on relevant legal/regulatory topics and developments.
• To deliver specific agreed objectives for the year.

Qualifications, Experience & Skills

• Experienced UK qualified lawyer in an in-house role or at a top 100 law firm;
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills and a commercial/business outlook to their work, including the ability to synthesise and clearly present complex legal matters/risks for senior and non-legal management;
• Public Sector Procurement Experience, advising on Public Contracts Regulations compliance
• Previous experience of working across complex, rapidly evolving programmes and senior stakeholder management within this environment;
• Working knowledge of data protection law and GDPR;
• Experience dealing with regulatory bodies and external stakeholders (e.g. our Govt shareholder) would be desired (but not essential);
• Experience of working across complex, rapidly evolving programmes and senior stakeholder management;
• Able to translate complex legal and compliance requirements into practical workable solutions for the business;
• Able to work in a fast-moving environment;
• Able to gain credibility across peers and stakeholders quickly;
• Able to work collaboratively and lead by example;
• Able to think strategically in setting direction and following through to delivery;
• Able to prioritise workloads and to deliver against demanding deadlines;
• Self-motivated self-starter with drive and determination to deliver results;
• Able to work autonomously.

About Post Office

The Post Office has thrived at the heart of high streets and local communities across the UK for over 370 years. As one of the country’s most trusted brands, we take our commitment to providing essential services to customers across the UK very seriously. We’re the UK’s largest retail network, as well as the largest financial services provider in the UK, with over 11,600 branches nationwide – more than all of the UK’s banks and building societies put together.

We know that the best way to provide a great service for customers is to evolve our business and adapt to their changing needs. That’s why we have a range of over 170 products and services, from personal financial services like banking, insurance, payments and travel money, to telecoms and, of course, mails. And we’re improving our online and in store experience for customers. We know that our customers never stop changing, so neither will we. We're here, in person, for the people who rely on us.

Our Ways of Working underpin everything we do, they are the “How” of our business strategy. They differentiate our business and aim to inspire great behaviours and align our colleagues around specific actions in order to be the organisation we want to be, and achieve our business goals.

By living the Ways of Working each day, you will help make that vision a reality and enable our cultural transformation. In short: Working in partnership, as one team, we deliver amazing results!

The Post Office embraces diversity and inclusion in the workplace and actively promote working without discrimination. We are also a Disability Confident Employer and are committed to interviewing disabled people who meet our minimum criteria for the job.