Senior Solicitor (Global and Commercial)

Senior Solicitor (Managing)

£55,075 - £65,000

Line management of a senior paralegal (already in post)

2 days at the head office in Coventry each week, 3 days remote working

We are recruiting a Senior Solicitor to join a university in-house legal services team in the East Midlands. This is the perfect opportunity for an experienced HE specialist to advance their career and step into a senior role, or perhaps an ideal step into a new legal field for an experienced commercial contracts solicitor seeking a change from local authority or private practice work.

The Senior Solicitor/Senior Legal Advisor (Global and Commercial) is responsible for providing professional legal advice in relation to commercial, corporate, education, international, intellectual property, and/or technology matters involving the University Group. This includes advising on complex academic and commercial projects relating to the Group's Global strategy and developing and delivering strategies to support the Group's plan to increase the nature and extent of its activities, whilst minimising legal and financial risk to the Group.

The Senior Solicitor/Senior Legal Advisor (Global and Commercial) is responsible for reviewing, negotiating, and drafting agreements with suppliers, purchasers, large corporate entities, government and funding bodies and other higher education institutions. In addition, the Senior Solicitor/Senior Legal Advisor will review, update, and develop precedents and templates to ensure that the Group's commercial, corporate, education, international, intellectual property, Infrastructure research and technology activities comply with statutory and regulatory requirements and sector best practice.

Main Duties and Responsibilities:

• Reviewing, drafting, and negotiating complex UK and international academic/research and commercial agreements including those relating to the Group's Global strategy and overseas operations, academic collaborations, staff and student mobility, supplier agreements, services agreements, funding agreements, collaboration agreements, IT and software terms and conditions, agent agreements and development agreements. Advising on legal issues arising out of such arrangements including those relating to commercial law, contract law, company law, intellectual property law and data protection law.
• To assist the Principal Solicitors with the development of Group legal strategies and to liaise closely with the various individuals/teams in the Group who deal with commercial and global matters including Deputy Vice Chancellors, Pro Vice Chancellors, Deans, Directors, Registry, principal investigators, academic departments, the academic partnership unit, the enterprise and innovation team and Managing Directors of subsidiary companies in order to support the Group's plan to increase the nature and extent of its strategic activities and to continuously improve the Group's infrastructure whilst minimising legal and financial risk to the Group.
• To assist the Principal Solicitors in delivering the agreed strategy including advising, drafting, and negotiating complex and high value agreements/collaborations.
• Liaising with relevant professional service areas such as procurement, tax, finance, HR, marketing, communications, registry and estates as appropriate (or support the stakeholder in making such referrals).
• To instruct and work with external UK and/or overseas legal advisors where appropriate (including gathering information and documentation, preparing detailed briefing documents, interpreting, and effecting the advice received, obtaining instructions from the senior leadership team, and negotiating terms of agreements).
• To evaluate, monitor and report on the progress of commercial, corporate, education, international, property, Infrastructure research and/or technology matters legal matters as required to the Group.

This role would suit solicitors (or equivalent) with 3-4 year's post qualification experience. Candidates must be able to attend Coventry head office 2 days per week.

For an informal chat, or to apply, please contact Kate Jasper in our Manchester office.

Sellick Partnership is proud to be an inclusive and accessible recruitment business and we support applications from candidates of all backgrounds and circumstances. Please note, our advertisements use years' experience, hourly rates, and salary levels purely as a guide and we assess applications based on the experience and skills evidenced on the CV. For information on how your personal details may be used by Sellick Partnership, please review our data processing notice on our website.