Senior Legal Counsel

at  Cifas

As Senior Legal Counsel within the newly formed, Legal, Risk and Corporate Governance Team you will work closely with our General Counsel to provide legal advice and support to the organisation on a wide range of commercial contract and general legal matters. This role comes as the organisation is embarking on a transformational journey, giving you the opportunity to get involved with a variety of challenging and exciting projects. We are looking for a vibrant, confident and solutions-focused senior lawyer, looking to make a positive impact in an organisation with great vision and purpose.

Key Responsibilities

• Assisting the General Counsel to deliver the overarching strategy for the combined Legal, Risk and Corporate Governance Function, taking an active role in setting, managing and achieving team objectives.
• Leading on a variety of customer, member and supplier contract negotiations. You should be an experienced commercial contracts lawyer and a skilled, confident negotiator who can engage in discussions in an articulate, constructive and collaborative manner.
• Providing commercial, and pragmatic advice in relation to a range of commercial and general legal matters. Given the organisation’s role delivering fraud prevention and data sharing solutions, this may include providing advice on data protection, fraud prevention and economic crime legislation as well as technology and data sharing agreements.
• Supporting our product, operational and commercial teams to deliver business and operational transformation projects and new product offerings. Strong organisation and project management skills would therefore be beneficial for anyone taking on this role.
• Monitoring changes in legislation to help the business to identify any associated opportunities, risks and actions required to ensure our compliance on an ongoing basis.
• Investigating the legal, practical and ethical issues surrounding the use of new and emerging technology including AI, from the perspective of delivering operational efficiencies within the organisation, enhancing the fraud fighting capabilities of our products and understanding the challenges we face from fraud and hostile cyber activity.
• Establishing, updating and implementing new and improved legal, operational and business processes. Experience supporting with business transformation projects, an interest in legal operations and a willingness to try new things is therefore key.
• Drafting new legal agreements and updating standard contract terms with a focus on making it easy for organisations to engage with us and delivering a great customer and user experience.
• Managing and prioritising your own workload as well as assisting the General Counsel to manage external resources and budgets. At Cifas we work with a panel of external law firms as well as flexible, fractional outsourced resource, ensuring that our workload is manageable as well as being interesting and challenging.
• Promoting a culture of ethical behaviour and accountability, supporting with a variety of compliance, information security and ESG initiatives and tracking, managing and mitigating legal and compliance risks.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

6+ PQE Qualified Lawyer with law degree or equivalent qualification. Relevant experience acceptable.

• 6+ years commercial contracts experience preferably gained in a technology or data-centric business.
• Expertise in technology law, data privacy, cybersecurity, risk management, software and data licensing, and regulatory compliance are all beneficial.
• Strong organisation and project management skills and experience assisting with business transformation projects or legal operations initiatives.
• Previous in-house experience is desirable, although this role could also be suitable for a lawyer with a private practice background moving in-house.

Benefits
· Remote working with approximately 2 days a month in the London office.
· 33 days annual leave plus bank holidays
· Private healthcare
· Excellent pension package through salary sacrifice
· Personal and professional growth
· Employee wellbeing – Wellbeing breaks, wellbeing hub access with resources to workout, meditation guides, sleep stories and yoga.
About Cifas
Cifas is the UK’s leading fraud prevention service, managing the largest database of instances of fraudulent conduct in the country. Our members are organisations from all sectors, sharing their data across those sectors to reduce instances of fraud and financial crime. Operating as a not-for-profit means our teams put all their efforts into our mission of fighting fraud, rather than creating a financial return for shareholders.
Fraud presents a serious and significant threat to the UK and our role in protecting businesses, the public and the economy from fraud is now more important than ever before. As a result, we have ambitious plans to innovate and create new services and products that will significantly improve the way that we and our members tackle fraud.
Our employees play a crucial part in ensuring we remain the UK’s leading fraud prevention service, whilst also ensuring our members remain at the heart of everything we do.
We have introduced agile ways of working, allowing teams to decide how best they work, while ensuring regular opportunities to collaborate and innovate. We create an environment to help you to unleash your potential and perform the most rewarding work of your career, whist keeping your wellbeing at the foremost with initiatives in place to promote the wellness of our people.
We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive culture and have dedicated inclusion champions across the business to celebrate and promote our uniqueness. We also have a dedicated team of volunteers looking for innovative ways to give back as part of our commitments under our Corporate Social Responsibility. And were delighted to be recognised in the 2021 and 2022 best companies to work for listings.
In return for helping us take the fight to fraud, all our employees receive an impressive benefit package including 33 days holiday, generous pension package, annual bonus, private healthcare, as well as a range of other benefits.
If you are passionate about our purpose and would like an opportunity to make a valuable contribution to fraud prevention, we would like to hear from you.

• Assisting the General Counsel to deliver the overarching strategy for the combined Legal, Risk and Corporate Governance Function, taking an active role in setting, managing and achieving team objectives.
• Leading on a variety of customer, member and supplier contract negotiations. You should be an experienced commercial contracts lawyer and a skilled, confident negotiator who can engage in discussions in an articulate, constructive and collaborative manner.
• Providing commercial, and pragmatic advice in relation to a range of commercial and general legal matters. Given the organisation’s role delivering fraud prevention and data sharing solutions, this may include providing advice on data protection, fraud prevention and economic crime legislation as well as technology and data sharing agreements.
• Supporting our product, operational and commercial teams to deliver business and operational transformation projects and new product offerings. Strong organisation and project management skills would therefore be beneficial for anyone taking on this role.
• Monitoring changes in legislation to help the business to identify any associated opportunities, risks and actions required to ensure our compliance on an ongoing basis.
• Investigating the legal, practical and ethical issues surrounding the use of new and emerging technology including AI, from the perspective of delivering operational efficiencies within the organisation, enhancing the fraud fighting capabilities of our products and understanding the challenges we face from fraud and hostile cyber activity.
• Establishing, updating and implementing new and improved legal, operational and business processes. Experience supporting with business transformation projects, an interest in legal operations and a willingness to try new things is therefore key.
• Drafting new legal agreements and updating standard contract terms with a focus on making it easy for organisations to engage with us and delivering a great customer and user experience.
• Managing and prioritising your own workload as well as assisting the General Counsel to manage external resources and budgets. At Cifas we work with a panel of external law firms as well as flexible, fractional outsourced resource, ensuring that our workload is manageable as well as being interesting and challenging.
• Promoting a culture of ethical behaviour and accountability, supporting with a variety of compliance, information security and ESG initiatives and tracking, managing and mitigating legal and compliance risks