Senior Legal Counsel

Closing date

30 April 2024

Employment type

Permanent

Salary

£68,000 - £73,000 / year

The Legal and Governance team sits within the Operations directorate at the Foundation. We are a small, agile unit, looking to turn our hands at anything that comes our way to assist the organisation and our colleagues to achieve our charitable mission. As a team, our work covers a broad spectrum of legal and governance matters, from commercial contracts and grant agreements, to advising on intellectual property, charity law requirements around restricted funds, fundraising, campaigning and political activity through to commissioning and collating Board and committee meeting materials and company secretarial duties. This role is key to the development of our team and the work we do across the Foundation.

Key Responsibilities

Charitable partnerships (Impact on Urban Health)

Identify relevant legal and compliance considerations on projects and activities within the IoUH team and work with the IoUH to put in place appropriate mechanisms or policies to manage issues that are identified.
Structure and assist colleagues with drafting and negotiate agreements for a wide variety of charitable partnerships, including commercial contracts, grants, IP licenses, novel investment models, revenue-sharing arrangements and data agreements.
Act as a thought partner with the team to advise on the structuring, legal risks and strategic implications of partnerships and future opportunities.
Maintain and appropriately file correspondence and documentation relating to commercial contracts.

Grants administration (Programmatic, Trust Engagement and Special fund grants)

Advise colleagues, alongside the Grants Operations team, on the drafting and execution of grant agreements, including tailoring agreements for individuals, unincorporated groups and commercial entities and advising on IP ownership and commercialisation, indemnities, on-funding obligations and other queries.

Procedure and policy efficiencies

Draft, maintain and update our internal guidelines, policies and standard-form documents.
Create policy and process efficiencies.
Act as deputy data protection lead, supporting the primary data protection lead through providing training to colleagues and ensuring Foundation’s mandated practice is understood and followed.

Tailored partnerships

Consider legal considerations, and appropriate processes, for working with certain partners (e.g., regulatory, private gain, data protection, policy), including advising on due diligence procedures and tailoring our standard form templates.
Work with cross-functional stakeholders on longer-term projects to change our partnership models to cede power to the communities we work with, whilst balancing this against our charity law obligations.

Cross-functional work

Work with cross-functional stakeholders, including communications, policy and influencing, evaluation and the Executive Team to advise on cross-team collaboration, opportunities, issues and risks relating to our charitable partnerships.
Assist teams such as property, endowment and HR on their legal needs, including drafting, negotiating and agreeing documents and being the first port-of-call for a variety of legal issues.
Lead on specific projects for either individual directorates or cross-directorate projects.
Act as business partner to the fundraising team on a variety of issues, including advising and supporting them with drafting, negotiating and advising on a wide-range of fundraising agreements.
Act as business partner to the Endowment team, ensuring they have the legal support required for the smooth running of their activities.

Governance and legal

Act as Company Secretary for the Foundation’s three subsidiary companies.
Work with the Foundation’s Legal Director & Company Secretary in advising colleagues on legal and governance matters.
Undertake research into specific legal issues or matters of best practice and provide training to legal team colleagues on these issues
Identify need for, organise and run training sessions on key legal and compliance issues to Foundation staff.
Deputise for the Legal Director when required.
Line Management
Line manage the team’s paralegal, supervising them and supporting their development.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

Skills and Experience

Experience in drafting and reviewing commercial contracts (Essential)
Experience in drafting and reviewing grant agreements (Desirable)
Legal research skills (Essential)
Preparation of guidance notes and training materials (Essential)
Experience using the Microsoft Office suite (Essential)

Knowledge and Qualifications

Sound knowledge of the law of England and Wales (Essential)
Familiarity with commercial contracts and contract law (Essential)
Familiarity with the charity sector and charity law (Essential)
Some familiarity with health/social care/voluntary sector technical language and organisations (Desirable)
Some familiarity with basic financial and grants related terms and concepts (Desirable)

Abilities and Attributes

Self-starter who is adaptable, works with integrity, and exhibits the Foundation’s enterprising, collaborative and delivery-minded cultural and behavioural values
Excellent verbal and written communication skills
Detail oriented
Good interpersonal skills and able to effectively liaise with both internal and external communities
Problem solving skills, able to use initiative and actively seeks pragmatic solutions
Good planning and organisational skills, able to work to multiple prioritised tasks, targets and deadlines, with careful attention to detail
Team player, with an ability to create effective working relationships
Ability to embed diversity, equity and inclusion in everything we do

Benefits

Up to 12% employer pension contributions
Annual personal development budget
Annual health and wellbeing personal allowance
Enhanced maternity, paternity, and parental leave pay accessible without length of service requirements.
Health and wellbeing programme that offers optional free yearly health check-ups.
Support for healthy eating via fruit bowls and onsite lunch facilities.
Agile working, flexible hours, and supportive IT kit.
Shower facilities and bike lock area.
Generous annual leave (27 days + bank holidays)
Subsidies for glasses
Employee Assistance Programme

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About us

As part of our team, you will work alongside talented people from a real mix of personal and professional backgrounds, in an environment where different perspectives and lived experience are valued and respected.

Working here

Together, we want to build the foundations of a society where everyone can stay healthier for longer.

Diversity, equity and inclusion

We believe better health for all is within our reach and by becoming a more diverse, equitable and inclusive organisation together we can achieve this.

Recruitment approach

There is immense power in diversity so we recruit and nurture talented people who think and act differently.