Commercial Lawyer

Commercial Counsel

Permanent

Reading/Hybrid – 3 days per week onsite

Overview of the role:

Provide expert legal support, advice and guidance to the Sales, Commercial and Communications/Marketing teams in the business on all types of commercial matters (including commercial disputes, intellectual property and technology) including drafting and negotiating contracts where necessary.

Work with the Senior Commercial Counsel on high value and high priority transactions, managing external legal suppliers and external legal spend where required. Build strong working relationships with business teams as well as external contacts including Shareholder and, Customer legal teams.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Utilising expert legal knowledge, provide support and advice to Cornerstone’s Sales and Commercial team to support customer acquisition targets and its delivery of passive infrastructure services across the mobile telecommunications sector.
• Be the go-to contact for the Sales and Commercial, Marketing and Communications teams for day-to-day legal queries and general support.
• The role will include the drafting and negotiation of legal documents across a wide range of areas including IT, Marketing, Operations and general Commercial and providing direction and insight into business cases, strategies and governance documentation.
• Ability to proactively anticipate challenges or issues and manage independently.
• Agreements will range from cloud services contracts, infrastructure sharing agreements, facilities management, NDAs, master services agreements, framework agreements and other customer-facing agreements.
• Guide colleagues with sound legal advice as to the risk and issues relating to a particular deal, mitigating risk and providing pragmatic solutions where necessary.
• Responsible for providing legal support to the Marketing, Brand and Communications team advising them on all relevant legal matters.
• Work closely with the Senior Commercial Counsel with queries and drafting contract variations in relation to our two Master Services Agreements
• Responsibility for the upkeep, maintenance and overall transformation (in time) of our template document suite which forms the basis of our commercial transactions.
• Responsible for continually updating the suite in accordance with the changing legal landscape and ensuring customer obligations are adequately backed off to CS’s supply chain.
• Contribute to the continual improvement of the Legal & Compliance Team’s function through adding value via innovative solutions and forward thinking in relation to the way we progress legal workstreams.
• Proactively identify areas that are fit for transformation and devise new solutions, often embracing technology that can deliver results more efficiently.
• Build effective working relationships with our legal suppliers to ensure work is dealt with in a manner, and at a cost, that is satisfactory to Cornerstone.

Skills required for this role:

• A qualified solicitor with a background in practicing in commercial law
• Breadth of commercial contract experience.
• 3-6 years’ PQ experience in commercial transactions
• Experience working within a busy in-house legal team.
• A solicitor admitted to the role with a current practicing certificate.
• Strong interpersonal and project management skills
• Ability to build strong working relationships with colleagues and other stakeholders
• Good initiative with ability to work autonomously and as part of a team.
• Proven approach to innovation and continuous improvement
• Good commercial awareness
• Experience with Technology, Marketing and IP contracts.