Commercial Counsel

We're looking for a Commercial Counsel to join our team on a fixed term basis in London as part of our Legal function.

Role overview

The Commercial Counsel will provide a range of legal support across brands in Ascential Futures with a focus on:

LIONS - operator of the annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, which has championed creative excellence since 1954, providing the definitive benchmark for creativity that drives progress, globally, together with membership, learning and advisory services; and

WARC - the world’s most trusted source of insight when it comes to developing highly effective marketing. WARC’s unrivalled marketing intelligence is used by world leading brands, agencies and media owners to create work that works.

Key to success will be managing a diverse and challenging workload, assisting in building effective processes and systems to ensure efficiency, earning the trust and respect of various senior stakeholders, as well as working collaboratively with colleagues across other functions.  The role will, on occasion, involve instructing and managing external lawyers.

The individual will be required to work autonomously with support from more senior members of the team and peers.  Some knowledge of technology, data and IP based risk issues would be helpful. The individual should be adept at communicating clearly and succinctly with stakeholders at all levels of the business.

Key Responsibilities

Advice

• Advising, drafting and amending a full range of commercial contracts, standard terms and conditions, sponsorship contracts, venue agreements, barter agreements, IP licensing agreements and other business-as-usual agreements;

• Advising on establishing and managing commercial partnership arrangements;

• Advising on commercial disputes arising out of client relationships and supporting our dispute resolution and debt collection process;

• Advising on copyright and trademark issues (contentious and non-contentious), assisting in managing the trademark portfolio;

• Advising on data privacy compliance, privacy and data security issues and liaising with the group DPO as required;

• Assisting and developing templates for use by the business and legal team; and

• Assessing legal risks; putting in place risk mitigation and management strategies.

Training

• Participating in a regular legal training programme for Ascential brands as required, providing training on compliance, particularly The Ascential Code, contract, data protection and other relevant legal issues.

Reporting

• Keeping records of matters worked on and reporting the same.  Contributing to legal reporting of key business risks to senior management.

• Coordination of risk committee meetings and maintenance of the relevant risk register.

Professional Development

• Maintaining professional development and signing up to training courses aligned with business needs, objectives and self-improvement needs. 

• Meeting and exceeding personal agreed KPIs.

• Contributing to legal team objectives to deliver value to the business; facilitating business objectives and assisting the legal team in profile-raising and positive business engagement. 

Relationship Management

• Developing and managing the business relationship with key stakeholders.  This role involves liaising closely with commercial clients at all levels of the business.

Your Experience

•  The role would suit a junior lawyer with a broad commercial contracts background who has previous experience in either an international law firm or in-house, ideally in a global organisation. If the candidate is coming from private practice, some secondment experience would be useful.

• We require a proactive team player who can integrate quickly with a busy team, collaborate effectively, demonstrate a positive attitude, be willing to learn and be comfortable working on multiple matters as part of a dispersed, global function.

What We Offer

Our benefits package incorporates what we’re passionate about – unlocking your future, overall well-being and sustainability – whilst giving you control over your benefits.

• 25 days of holiday per year – with the option to buy or sell between 1-5 days 

• Great learning and development opportunities 

• Pension, Private Medical and Dental Insurance plans

• Life Assurance; Income Protection and Critical Illness covers 

• Option to opt into the Ascential Shares Scheme 

• Volunteering opportunities 

• Season ticket loans 

We also place great importance on health, lifestyle and wellbeing consistently, and offer flexible benefit packages.

Inclusive Workforce

At Ascential, our goal is to create a culture where individuals of all backgrounds feel comfortable in bringing their authentic selves to work. We want all Ascential people to feel included and truly empowered to contribute fully to our vision and goals.

Everyone who applies will receive fair consideration for employment. We do not discriminate based upon race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, gender identity, national origin, disability, or any other applicable legally protected characteristics in the location in which the candidate is applying.

If you have any accessibility requirements that would make you more comfortable during the application and interview process, please let us know so that we can support you.

For more information on our culture, visit Ascential.com.

About Ascential 

Ascential delivers specialist information, analytics and ecommerce optimisation platforms to the world's leading consumer brands and their ecosystems. 

Our world-class businesses improve performance and solve problems for our customers by delivering immediately actionable information combined with visionary longer-term thinking across Digital Commerce, Product Design and Marketing. We also serve customers across Retail & Financial Services. 

With more than 2,000 employees across five continents, we combine local expertise with a global footprint for clients in over 120 countries. 

Ascential is headquartered in the UK and listed on the London Stock Exchange.

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