POSITION SUMMARY:

This will be a key position on the Legal Contracting Centre of Excellence (CCOE) and the wider Global Legal team. This role is in our ‘Contracting Best Practice and Productivity’ team (CBP), which focusses on developing and sharing knowledge and expertise on contracting practice. The Corporate Counsel reports to the Sr Director, CCOE Lead and works alongside the CCOE’s CBP, Procurement and Commercial Contracting teams.
Thermo Fisher has recently been optimising the way in which it provides legal services related to contracting for various regions around the world including EMEA, North America, SEAT and ANZ. Lessons learned from this process have led to the formation of a new team and the creation of this role within the CBP team.

Particular emphasis will be placed upon developing new ways of working by:

• Working to understand their current legal and business contracting processes;
• Considering how these processes could be made more efficient;
• Drafting required legal agreement templates, playbooks, SOPs and guidance documents; and
• Rolling out the changes to the parts of the organisation they affect.

The best fit for this position would be someone who is a meticulous contract drafter, interested in detail and motivated by process excellence. The successful candidate should take a keen curiosity about process improvement and deployment as well as utilisation of automated legal solutions, with a view to evolving and improving how legal services are provided in Thermo Fisher Scientific. Success in this role would give the right candidate a real insight into strategy and policy formation within a large in-house legal team, setting them up for future success.
It will be based in Inchinnan, although remote or flexible location in the UK could be considered.

EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS:

• Law degree obtained from an internationally recognised University/law school.
• At least 3 years PQE (preferably in-house or in a full-service international law firm), representing life science, fast paced consumer good and/or other multinational companies.
• Excellent legal drafting skills and ability to provide pragmatic, astute advice on contractual risk under a variety of contracts.
• Experience of drafting and negotiating a wide range of commercial contracts.
• Strong commercial awareness and business sense, including the ability to engage and influence business partners.
• Ability to develop practical processes/approaches, and to drive solutions to completion.
• Ability to influence senior leadership within various different functions
• Strong ‘Can Do’ outlook and high self-motivation required; ability to handle a dynamic business environment; excellent communicator, robust and hard-working self-starter, excellent teammate.
• Fluent in spoken and written English.

• Drive process improvements in the Legal team’s support of our commercial functions – proactivity and passion for change are key to success;
• Develop expertise in contract drafting;
• Develop house style contracts, playbooks and SOPs;
• Reflect what changes in legislation mean for contract drafting, including working with other Legal colleagues who carry out this monitoring role in particular subject matters;
• Be interested in and an advocate for simple, understandable and coherent legal drafting;
• Take an active role in the wider CCOE’s process improvements, automated legal solution strategy by participating in and/or leading team projects;
• Educate and train colleagues on key contract terms and associated legal obligations; and
• Work with other Corporate, Group and Division Counsel.