Senior Legal Counsel - Commercial/Projects/Corporate/Property

SUMMARY

We are seeking a UK-qualified solicitor to join us as Senior Legal Counsel as the third permanent legal member of our team, reporting directly to the Head of Legal and Group Company Secretary. This role will sit between the Head of Legal and Group Company Secretary and our newly-qualified junior Legal Counsel, who recently completed their training contract with us. The role will provide extremely strong career progression opportunities for the right candidate, including the expectation that this role will assume some line management responsibility in the medium-term.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

We are looking for a junior to mid-level UK-qualified solicitor to join the team (as a guide, likely c. 4-5 PQE, although candidates from outside that range are encouraged to apply if they can demonstrate the necessary skills and experience), either as a first move in-house from private practice, or as a lateral move from a current in-house role. The successful candidate will have a strong technical background, and will likely have trained and qualified at an established City of London or leading national or international law firm, and will likely have a background focussing on commercial, corporate, projects or property work.

ROLE AND KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Given the pace at which both our business and the legal team are growing, you will have the opportunity to take on a wide variety of legal work, but importantly be given the space to use your skills to add value to the business. Uber Boat by Thames Clippers is proud of its history of innovation and disruption, and this role will give you the opportunity to build on your core legal skills, whilst adding to those legal and other skills, preparing you for a long-term successful career in-house. You should expect to work closely with our procurement function to support our commercial contracting agenda, with counterparties like our engine and equipment suppliers, and our IT and marine operational teams. We have a strong pipeline of growth projects planned for the next few years, ranging from pier construction and redevelopment works, to innovative de-carbonisation and ESG-driven projects, as well as corporate and financing opportunities, and you should expect to be involved in the majority of these. You will get to know our broad and varied property estate, and should expect to support the management of our piers, as well as our head office, and support any acquisition, development and re-development and construction work across the estate. Depending on your experience to date, and as your skills develop, you should expect to become involved in data protection, privacy and more complex IT work. Finally, you should also expect to learn about the more operational and regulatory side of managing a legal function, including legal budget management and cost control, recruitment and colleague development, legal operations and how to select, manage and develop relationships with external law firms and our business partners.

BEHAVIOURAL AND TECHNICAL COMPETENCIES

As a business and legal team, we value excellence, people with drive, passion and purpose, people who show and so deserve to receive respect from their colleagues, and people who are reliable, and can be trusted to do the right thing. For this role, intellectual rigour, flexibility, diligence, agility and clarity of thought are more important than any particular legal experience, although a strong knowledge of English contract law, excellent drafting skills and the ability to balance a clear understanding of risk with commercial pragmatism will be key. But, most of all, we want to hire people that are supportive, collegiate, engaged and talented. What you can bring to our business is more important than any particular aspect of your background. We value authenticity in our teams, and you should feel free to display your own personal style. We also want our legal experts to value what our operational teams do, and recognize the symbiotic nature of the relationship between the various head office teams and the support we provide to the business, and our frontline crews. Your abilities to communicate effectively (both in writing and orally), to be organised and reliable, and to be diligent, proactive and collaborative will make you successful in this role.

LOCATION AND TRAVEL

Our head offices are located in East London at Trinity Buoy Wharf, across the River Thames from The O2 (nearest public transport: Canning Town (Jubilee) or East India (DLR)), which is also the homeport for the vast majority of our fleet. Some relatively limited travel within the UK may be required from time to time, for example to our engineering facilities at Tilbury or our partner shipyard in the Isle of Wight. The legal team is supportive of flexible working / hybrid arrangements and recognize that modern lawyers have other things that they want or need to include in their lives, and you will be trusted to manage your time accordingly.

NEXT STEPS

If you are interested in learning more about this opportunity, please submit your CV via the apply button and if your experience is suitable, one of the consultants from Hydrogen Group will be in touch in due course.