Managing Legal Counsel

Who are McDonald’s?
McDonald’s has run its business in the UK since 1974 and celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. The business currently operates over 1,450 restaurants across the UK and Ireland, serving almost four million customers each day. McDonald’s is one of the UK’s largest private sector employers, employing over 177,000 people.
McDonald’s UK & Ireland has a proven track record of investing in the development of its employees and offering flexibility as part of its dedication to being a modern and progressive company. Every year, it invests over £40 million in developing people, giving every one of its employees the opportunity to take part in structured training.
McDonald’s buys ingredients from over 23,000 British and Irish farmers and spends over £1.1 billion annually on its food and packaging requirements. McDonald’s is committed to supporting British and Irish farmers to ensure it can continue to source many of its ingredients from the UK and Ireland.
McDonald’s is a market leader in its field, striving for the highest standard of quality, speed and restaurant experience. Re-generation of our restaurant infrastructure, covering digital ordering, re-imaging and dual-point service make working at McDonald’s more exciting than ever!
We're a people business just as much as we are a restaurant business. We strive to be the most inclusive brand in the world by building diverse teams who create delicious, feel good moments that are easy for everyone to enjoy. Joining McDonald's means thinking big every day and preparing for a career that can have impact around the world.

Hybrid Working
This role is based in our East Finchley office working 3 days in the office and 2 days remotely.

The Opportunity
We are seeking a bright, enthusiastic and well-organised lawyer to join our high performing, dynamic and friendly Legal team. The role will involve handling the full range of commercial legal matters in the UK and Ireland, supporting a number of departments across the business, including Delivery, Digital/IT, Marketing, HR and Supply Chain.

What will my accountabilities be?

• Working collaboratively with legal and business colleagues to manage commercial transactions, identify risks and provide solutions-driven, commercial advice including undertaking the following:
  • Preparing, reviewing and negotiating a broad range of commercial agreements including goods and services agreements and data processing agreements.
  • Working collaboratively with the McDelivery team and supporting them with legal queries in relation to our third party operators i.e. UberEats, Deliveroo and Just Eat.
  • Providing IP and marketing law support to the Marketing team in respect of advertising campaigns.
  • Undertaking data protection related work, including advising on GDPR compliance within new projects.
  • Providing day to day advice to colleagues across the business on a wide variety of other commercial issues including but not limited to customer service matters, supply chain matters, employment matters, crisis management and finance, tax and competition law matters.
• Managing, supervising and developing more junior members of the legal team undertaking a variety of commercial legal tasks, including the above.
• Providing legal advice on matters relating to the above commercial areas to the Boards of the UK or Irish McDonald’s companies where applicable.
• Pro-actively identifying legal trends and regulatory changes in order to enhance company policies and procedures, develop communication and training programmes and ensure awareness and compliance across the business.
• Participating and contributing to cross-functional working teams on projects involving strategic business initiatives and risk management strategies.
• Working with and managing external lawyers supporting the team on varying projects/matters.

What Team will I be part of and who are my customers?

The Managing Legal Counsel position will serve as a senior member of the Commercial Legal Team supporting all departments across the McDonald’s UK and Ireland business, including HR, Marketing and Delivery.

What background and attributes do I need to have?

• If you are a positive, pragmatic, and self-motivated lawyer, we want to hear from you. You should have significant experience and expertise in all of the relevant commercial legal matters referred to above gained with a respected law firm or within an established in-house department.
• You will need to have a strong track record of developing, managing and supervising junior members of a legal team in the relevant commercial legal areas.
• As a business we move at pace, so you need to be a fast learner who is able to roll your sleeves up and get stuck into a variety of different areas and handle competing priorities.
• You will need to be an effective communicator (including having strong drafting skills and the ability to clearly and concisely explain concepts to non-legal stakeholders); a strong relationship builder; efficient; and have the ability to see the big picture by providing commercially sound advice.
• We also like to build each other so you need to be a strong team player who likes sharing knowledge and developing the commercial legal team.

At McDonald’s we are People from all Walks of Life...
People are at the heart of everything we do and they make the McDonald’s experience. We embrace diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive culture that means people can be their best authentic self in our restaurants and offices, which helps us to better serve our customers.

We do not tolerate inequality, injustice or discrimination of any kind. These are hugely important issues and a brand with our reach and relevance means we have a very meaningful role to play.

We also recognise our responsibility as a large employer to continue being active in our communities, helping to develop skills and drive aspirations that will help people to be more aware of the world of work and more successful within it, whether with McDonald’s or elsewhere.

#LI-Hybrid