Senior Legal Counsel

The John Lewis Partnership’s Legal Team, led by the General Counsel, consists of four Heads of Legal, a team of lawyers and paralegals and a small administrative support team. The Employment legal team is a team of 9 - the Head of Employment, five senior legal counsel, one legal counsel and 2 paralegals.

Reporting into the Head of Legal, Employment, you will be a member of the Legal Team and responsible for the provision of high quality and commercially focused legal support to the Partnership, with a particular focus on Employment Law.

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced Senior Employment Lawyer to join a busy in-house legal team. You will engage with a broad range of stakeholders providing all areas of the Partnership with commercially focused legal advice across all aspects of employment law ranging from large scale restructurings and TUPE transfers to settlement agreements and changes in legislation.

Expected salary - Salary up to £110,000 depending on experience.

Contract type - This position is a Permanent contract.

Working pattern/flexible working - The role is based in London but Partnership has adopted a hybrid working approach, meaning you'll be able to work a mixture between the office and home based upon your personal needs whilst balancing the needs of the business. The Legal team spend a minimum of 1 day a week in the London office to connect plus as needed to attend key meetings.

Key responsibilities 

• To work autonomously but as part of a team to provide proactive, solution oriented, strategic advice on a wide range of non-contentious and contentious issues having regard to laws and regulations whilst working within the Partnerships’ policies and procedures.

• Applies commercial understanding and strategic insight when providing support. Commercially curious, gaining an in-depth knowledge of the Partnership's business, sector and commercial pressure.

• Accountable for enabling, spotting and driving connections across projects or matters and different teams to support consistency of approach and creating a collaborative culture with an aligned purpose and outcomes.

• Has a vision and strategy and delivers results with speed, simplicity and trust. Works efficiently and effectively with tools, people and process. Drives change for improvement.

• To judge when to outsource advice and when to escalate matters, drawing on experience and in-depth understanding of the issues at play across the commercial legal field, including being able to flag data protection, competition law and IP issues.

• To ensure the timely provision of legal expertise as required for strategic and operational projects and issues across the Partnership including the efficient outsourcing of advice where needed and managing external advice within budget.

• To develop and implement team processes and procedures to ensure the efficient and consistent delivery of legal advice.

• To support the Head of Legal and People teams with risk and budget reporting.

Essential skills/experience you’ll need

• An UK qualified lawyer with significant employment law experience and a proven track record of providing appropriate legal advice in a range of situations, preferably with substantial in-house experience.

• Confidence and credibility in working autonomously with a wide range of people, internal and external to the business.

• Demonstrated excellent influencing skills

• Organisation change, redundancy, TUPE experience

• Evidence of continuous improvement and change mindset

• Sound understanding of the commercial environment, and an ability to provide commercial solutions.

• Good relationship management skills both internally and externally and at all levels.

• A demonstrable, proactive, commercial and solutions-led approach to compliance.

Desirable skills/experience you’ll need

• Experience and knowledge of employment law issues particular to financial services

• Basic understanding of pensions, immigration and industrial relations legal issues

We are also recruiting for a legal counsel - employment role so if you have read this advert with interest but think that you might not have enough experience for this role yet, please take a look at our legal counsel vacancy.

We’re the largest employee owned business in the UK and home of our cherished brands, John Lewis and Waitrose. We’re not just employees, we’re Partners, driven by our purpose to build a happier world. As we look to our future, there’s never been a more exciting time to join us.  

We’re ruthlessly focused on being brilliant at retail. We continue to innovate, adapt and diversify. Never Knowingly Undersold on price, quality and service in John Lewis and passionately serving food-lovers in Waitrose.   

As Partners we all share the responsibility of ownership and in its rewards. We use our voices to contribute to our success, working together through the good and challenging times, holding true to our behaviours and treating everyone with kindness and respect. 

We all own making the Partnership somewhere we belong. Embracing our differences and creating an environment where we’re free to be ourselves and can THRIVE. Growing ourselves individually, and as a collective. 

As Partners, we make all the difference. And, we all own it.  

Important points to note:  

It’s important to note that some of our roles are subject to pre-employment vetting (which may include DBS checks for successful candidates). If required, you’ll be informed and provided with information about vetting during the recruitment process and we encourage you to complete any vetting documents quickly to avoid delays. Any DBS checks required will be carried out by a third-party registered body and financial probity checks may also be required for some of our roles.  

We occasionally close vacancies early in the event we receive a high volume of applications, and therefore, we recommend you apply early. If you require a reasonable adjustment due to a disability which means you may need longer to complete your application please contact us as soon as possible.

We want all of our Partners to have a good work-life balance and we support flexible working. This might mean flexible or compressed hours, job sharing or shorter hour contracts, where possible. Please discuss this further with the hiring manager during your interview. 

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