About the role
Balfour Beatty has an exciting opportunity for a Legal Counsel to join our growing team.
This role can be based from either Scotland, London or Warrington. Some travel is required alongside hybrid working.
As a Legal Counsel, you will work as part of the UK business-facing legal team, delivering a proactive legal service to support Balfour Beatty by providing professional guidance, pragmatic advice, and practical support on legal and compliance issues.
This role is available full time, but we are open to conversations if part time would suit you better. We want the best people for our roles, and we recognise that sometimes those people aren’t available full time.
What you'll be doing
Overview
* Work closely with the post-construction commercial, technical, and operational teams in managing and resolving contentious matters.
* Responsible for managing dispute resolution in formal and informal processes and instruction of external panel firms, experts, and counsel as appropriate to the process.
* Act autonomously in analysing and solving problems within established working procedures.
Stakeholder Management
* Build and maintain relationships with managers and post-construction team to ensure that the UK Legal team remains responsive to business needs and expectations.
* Under the supervision of the Managing Counsel or Senior Counsel, engage and manage agreed panel law firms to deal with specific legal issues as required.
* Work with the commercial, technical, and operational teams to manage and monitor corporate governance presentations, approvals, and documentation.
General Legal Support
* Carry out contract reviews in accordance with UK policies and procedures and provide commercial and pragmatic advice in a timely and appropriate manner.
* Advise and assist the UK businesses in the negotiation and drafting of contract terms and conditions with its clients, partners, supply chain members, and other stakeholders.
* Advise and assist the UK businesses in the formation, negotiation, and drafting of joint venture, consortium and framework agreements, professional services appointments, and other key business documentation requiring legal support and input.
Dispute Management & Resolution
* Provide legal support in relation to all forms of dispute management and resolution.
* Work with the post-construction commercial, technical, and operational teams, taking the lead on compliance and process, while assisting with the overall resolution strategy and delivery of solutions.
* Assist Managing and Senior Counsel, and, in consultation with them engage and manage agreed panel law firms in relation to adjudications, mediations, litigations, and arbitrations.
* Assist the teams in gathering historic data using eDiscovery and other electronic search tools.
* Assist the post-construction team with their engagement with external technical experts instructed to give advice in relation to issues identified in claims and to identify solutions.
Bonds, Parent Company Guarantees and Warranties
* Review the wording of bonds, guarantees, and warranties in accordance with UK and Balfour Beatty Group policies and provide advice in a timely and appropriate manner.
* Liaise with UK Commercial, Treasury, and Group Legal teams to procure bonds and parent company guarantees.
Training
* Deliver discrete legal training for legal team and the business.
* Stays up to date with new and changing legislation and case law.
* Maintains own CPD.
Who we're looking for
Qualifications/ Experience
* Qualified solicitor/barrister; ideally not less than two years PQE, consideration may be given to less experienced candidates displaying requisite skills and experience.
* A contentious construction background or strong interest in contentious matters.
* Knowledge and experience of the construction/infrastructure industry.
Personal qualities
* Organisation: Excellent organisational skills; a self-starter, prioritises own work and delivers independently to deadline.
* Commercial acumen: Understands business drivers.
* Problem solving: Solutions-orientated, pragmatic.
* Teamwork: Builds productive relationships within the Legal team and within Strategic Business Units.
* Communication:
o Strong verbal and written communication, able to influence and persuade.
o Inputs into client meetings, working with the team to convey clear messages, articulate offers and promote beneficial rapport.
o Presents positions to teams and the business confidently in non-legalistic ways, clearly and effectively distilling complex technical concepts into business terms.
* Negotiation: Effective negotiator, robust but flexible approach.
* Forward looking: Looks for ways to innovate and improve ways of working.
* Lives Balfour Beatty Behaviours & Values:
o Energy - Creates pace and momentum to deliver.
o Execute - Gets the job done and done well.
o Edge - Makes the right decisions for Balfour Beatty.
o Empower - Takes ownership and strives for high performance.
o Excite - Inspires others to outperform.
o Empathise - Listens, understands and adjusts.
Why work for us
At Balfour Beatty we are committed to creating a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture where everyone can be themselves and reach their full potential, not only because this is the right thing to do, but because it makes us a better business.
To ensure we deliver on this commitment, we have a UK Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan which sets out the wide range of targeted, proactive, measurable steps we are taking to make this a reality. You can read our UK Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan in full at www.balfourbeatty.com/value_everyone.
To help and support us with our desired commitment to create an inclusive culture we are members of WISE, enei, Business Disability Forum and Women into Construction. In 2020, we signed the Audeliss and Involve Open Letter to demonstrate our commitment to taking key long term and sustainable actions on Black Inclusion.
Balfour Beatty is also a Gold Award holder in the Ministry of Defence 'Employer Recognition Scheme' and actively encourage applications from Armed Forces personnel, veterans, and reservists.
As a Disability Confident Employer, we are committed to working with people who have disabilities and long-term health conditions to remove barriers for them in obtaining employment. We are also committed to offering applicants with a disability an interview if they meet the minimum requirements for the role.
Further information on Disability Confident can be found at: https://disabilityconfident.campaign.gov.uk/.
Day in, day out, our teams deliver amazing projects in challenging conditions; developing, managing and maintaining the vital infrastructure and public spaces that modern economies, societies and communities rely on.
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