Senior Legal Counsel

The RWS Legal Team is highly collaborative, collegial, and dedicated to providing the business with proactive, pragmatic, and timely legal advice.  

We are seeking a highly experienced and proactive Senior Legal Counsel to join our dynamic legal team. As Senior Legal Counsel, you will be responsible for drafting, negotiating, and reviewing a broad range of strategic corporate and commercial contracts, in addition to  providing accurate and timely legal advice and guidance to colleagues, business units and senior management on a wide range of legal issues affecting the company, including regulatory compliance. This role involves collaboration with cross-functional teams to mitigate legal risks and support the company's growth initiatives, along with managing a small team of lawyers, guiding their work and ensuring efficient workflow, and supporting their professional development and alignment with organizational goals.

The work is challenging, fast-paced and rewarding, both professionally and personally. This is an exciting and engaging position in a mission-driven organization, offering a flexible, hybrid work arrangement. 

About RWS Legal

In joining RWS’s Legal and Professional Advisory team you will play an instrumental part in supporting the world’s leading provider of technology-enabled language, content, and intellectual property services. RWS has growing revenues of over £750m through a combination of value accretive acquisitions and organic growth and a current market capitalization of £1.3bn. The Legal and Professional Advisory team, led by our General Counsel and Company Secretary, Jane Hyde, includes the Legal, Company Secretarial, Data Privacy and ESG functions which provide critical business partnering to our Divisional operations and help drive the Group’s risk management, regulatory, governance and sustainability agendas. You will be part of a diverse and international team working across our global operations which span a footprint of over 100 legal entities in 43 different countries worldwide.  
 
It’s a very exciting time to join RWS for an individual who enjoys driving change and making an impact in a dynamic environment. As part of the overall RWS business strategy we are making a significant investment in upgrading our systems and processes to deliver enhanced reporting and control and strengthening our risk and governance frameworks.

Key Responsibilities

• Review, draft, and negotiate a wide variety of commercial and corporate agreements (including, but not limited to technology, licensing, services, partner, procurement, supplier, contractor and privacy agreements) across multiple jurisdictions; and provide legal advice on existing contracts. 
• Collaborate with, and provide accurate, and timely and business-oriented legal advice and counsel in a practical and commercially focused manner to cross-functional teams, including management, sales, operations, marketing, finance, privacy, security, IT, HR and other internal teams, to understand their business requirements and ensure contracts and legal advice support strategic goals.
• Shepherd deals and mange escalations through the contract life cycle and internal approval processes while partnering with the appropriate cross-functional teams.
• Work within internal business partners identifying legal, regulatory and compliance requirements and risks associated with various business initiatives and developing and implementing appropriate mitigation strategies.
• Ensure compliance with corporate governance standards and practices.
• Line manage and mentor a team of four lawyers, including assigning work, monitoring capacity, providing guidance, direction, support and conducting performance evaluations.
• Ensure the effective and efficient delivery of legal services by determining how to optimise the use of legal resources and prioritise work and working with the Head of Legal to drive continuous improvement.
• Collaborate on and lead other project-based work within the scope of the legal department responsibilities (such as corporate or finance transactions or disputes) on an as-needed basis.
• Develop and deliver legal training programs and materials to educate employees and new team members on contract risk, legal compliance and best practices.
• Assist in the development and implementation of legal policies, procedures, and internal controls to enhance ethical business practices and to ensure compliance with legal requirements and mitigate legal risks (and align with changes in laws and regulations).
• Work with external legal counsel and other advisors as needed to address specialized legal matters.

Skills & Experience

• Solicitor, qualified in England & Wales, or other common law jurisdiction
• Minimum 5-7years’ PQE, preferably in an in-house legal department, ideally with experience representing large technology driven organizations.
• Proven contract negotiation and drafting skills, a strong understanding of risk allocation and substantive expertise with key provisions of most contracts, with specific experience in complex IT/software technology and other commercial and corporate agreements in the US, Europe and Asia.
• Qualified candidates must have expertise in a broad spectrum of domestic and international business areas, including commercial contracts, intellectual property law, commercial law, GDPR and related privacy laws, emerging AI regulation and regulatory matters.
• Proven supervisory team and leadership skills to effectively guide and support team members.
• Ability to think strategically, problem solve creatively and quickly, and be a savvy partner to clients (both internal and external) to help them navigate legal risk to achieve business objectives.
• Self-motivated and highly productive with the ability to multi-task.
• Quick learner who can adapt to a fast-paced, high-growth environment and can navigate complex cross-functional situations.
• Works well under pressure in a fast paced sales environment, with regular prioritization and timely and transparent communication
• Comfortable operating with a high degree of autonomy.
• Demonstrated flexibility and eagerness to work on a broad range of legal matters.
• Strong team player with the ability to collaborate with cross-functional teams representing a wide range of entities and departments in an international and multi-cultural environment
• Excellent analytical, drafting, interpersonal and communication skills.
• Ability to maintain a strong presence in client meetings and meetings with opposing counsel and parties, while representing the company’s interests.
• Possesses strong integrity, and the ability to maintain confidences while working with sensitive, confidential information.
• Demonstrated commitment to principles of equity and inclusion.
• Flexible work from home schedule, with a minimum of two days in the office.

At RWS, we’re here for one purpose: unlocking global understanding.

As a unique, world-leading provider of technology-enabled language, content, and intellectual property services, we remove the barriers to communication to make global connection possible. Our unrivalled experience and deep understanding of language have been developed over more than 60 years. As we look to shape the future, our ambition is to create a world where understanding is universal for everyone.

We work with over 80% of the world’s top 100 brands, more than three-quarters of Fortune’s 20 ‘Most Admired Companies’ and almost all the top pharmaceutical companies, investment banks, law firms and patent filers. Our client base spans Europe, Asia Pacific and North and South America. Our 65+ global locations across five continents service clients in the automotive, chemical, financial, legal, medical, pharmaceutical, technology and telecommunications sectors.   

If you like the idea of working with smart people who are passionate about breaking down language barriers and giving back to their communities, then you’ll love life at RWS. Our work fundamentally recognizes the value of every language and culture. So, we celebrate difference, we are inclusive and believe that diversity makes us strong.

We want every employee to grow as an individual and excel in their career. In return, we expect all our people to live by the values that unite us: to partner with colleagues and clients, to adopt a pioneering spirit, to be positive in progressing the work we do, and always to deliver what we promise. 

RWS Values

Get the 3Ps right – Partner, Pioneer, Progress – and we´ll Deliver together as One RWS.

For further information, please visit: RWS   

RWS embraces DEI and promotes equal opportunity, we are an Equal Opportunity Employer and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind. RWS is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all employees and to providing employees with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions at RWS are based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications, without regard to race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, sex, age, disability, or sexual orientation. RWS will not tolerate discrimination based on any of these characteristics

Recruitment Agencies: RWS Holdings PLC does not accept agency resumes.  Please do not forward any unsolicited resumes to any RWS employees.  Any unsolicited resume received will be treated as the property of RWS and Terms & Conditions associated with the use of such resume will be considered null and void.