Legal Counsel
- Recruiter
- Guy's and St Thomas' Charity
- Location
- London (Central), SE1
- Salary
- £65,000 - £80,000 (full time equivalent) plus pension and other benefits.
- Posted
- 20 Jul 2018
- Closes
- 06 Aug 2018
- Job Title
- General Counsel
- Practice Area
- Charities, Property and Planning, Trusts/Investments/Funds
- PQE Level
- 5-7
- Contract Type
- Permanent
- Hours
- Part Time
We are seeking a lawyer to take the role of Legal Counsel and Company Secretary. This new role has been created to respond to the Charity’s increasingly complex portfolio of legal, contractual and regulatory issues. In our programmatic charitable activities, we are providing support to a wider range of third parties through grants, contracts, loans and investments.
In our role as the hospital charity for Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, we are taking an increasingly active role in managing and monitoring our fundraising activities which are effected through an outsourced partnership arrangement with King’s College London. We are creating a portfolio of impact fund investments within our £800 million of endowment assets. We are also embarking on an active programme of developing a significant portion of our £300 million investment property portfolio through partnering with developers. In addition, we are seeking to improve the quality of the Company Secretarial function at the Charity.
The role is an excellent opportunity for someone looking for a management and leadership role at a dynamic and intellectually challenging organisation. We are willing to be innovative in how we achieve our ambitious goals and we work at pace.
Reporting to
Director of Finance and Investment
Key accountabilities and specific responsibilities
The Legal Counsel will work with senior executives and the wider teams within the Charity to ensure that key legal and regulatory issues are identified and resolved. This will include:
- Advising on, drafting and negotiating documents directly. This will encompass contracts, grants, gift agreements, private equity-style fund investment agreements and side letters and property development agreements
- Training front line teams to be able to finalise agreements when appropriate and to identify issues that need more expertise to resolve. This is particularly the case in the Programme and Trust Engagement teams where there is an increasing volume of documentation to process and where some standardisation could be introduced
- Briefing and managing external lawyers on larger projects
- Assisting teams to brief external lawyers that they can then manage directly themselves where the skills of the teams allow
- As part of our grants+ support, advise grantholders on accessing appropriate legal support
- Advising on and resolving regulatory and contractual issues that arise
The job holder will:
- Oversee and administer the organisation’s day-to-day legal issues and act as the central point of advice on all legal and regulatory matters
- Ensure that the Charity and relevant staff are aware of and comply with relevant charity and corporate law and regulations
- Work closely with the Charity’s key external lawyers Withers, on general charity law and regulatory issues
- Act as a key adviser to the Executive Team, providing sound advice on legal risk and compliance relevant to our charitable status and activities
- Act as Company Secretary to the Board and our two active subsidiaries. You will attend and minute;
- quarterly board meetings
- bi-weekly meetings of the Executive Investment Committee (which approves most charitable expenditure)
- quarterly meetings of the Investment Committee and the Trust Engagement Committee
- semi-annual meetings of the Finance and Audit Committee
- annual meeting of the Remuneration Committee
Person Specification
Qualifications and knowledge
- Qualified to practise as solicitor or barrister in England
- A strong academic record
Experience (Essential)
- 6+ years' post qualification experience
- Knowledge of English charity law and regulation
Experience (desirable)
- Experience of the following: property law and related commercial agreements; investment and fund agreements; minuting and doing company secretarial tasks
Skills, abilities and attributes
- Sound commercial judgement, flexibility and willingness to balance legal risk with charitable and commercial objectives
- Ability to prioritise and communicate across a busy portfolio of disparate projects and issues
- Ability to identify key issues and how and by whom they should be most efficiently resolved – good at closing deals
- Good delegator
- Self-starter - able to work under own initiative
- Flexible and willing to work with and contribute to a small team
- Excellent written and oral communication skills – strong influencing skills and effective at communicating with trustees and senior executives
- Relationship management – post holder will be expected to maintain a good working relationship with all external lawyers, outsourced partners and internal stakeholders
Values
Enterprising – looks at things from different angles, with willingness to experiment and test
Collaborative – gives time and attention to people and ideas, and motivates others
Delivery minded – is willing to get stuck in and take ownership for results
Salary and Terms of Employment
This is a part-time permanent role. We are willing to discuss the amount of time needed to fulfil the responsibilities and currently estimate this to be 0.5-0.6x FTE.
Salary - £65,000 - £80,000 (full time equivalent) per annum, depending on experience.