Senior Legal Counsel

Standard Chartered; Dubai; On-site; AED 200,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading international bank in Dubai is seeking a Senior Legal Counsel in Wealth, Retail Banking, and Private Banking to provide expert legal guidance and ensure compliance with laws. The role involves managing legal risks, supporting business growth, and fostering a culture of integrity. Ideal candidates will have a recognized legal education, experience in banking law, and proficiency in English and Arabic. This position offers a competitive salary and comprehensive benefits.

Benefits

Competitive salary

Medical and life insurance

Flexible working options

Continuous learning opportunities

Wellbeing support through digital platforms

Qualifications

• Must be a qualified solicitor, attorney, barrister, or advocate.
• Bilingual proficiency in English and Arabic is preferred.
• Relevant experience in banking law or in-house legal teams.

Responsibilities

• Conduct legal reviews of documentation for compliance.
• Provide advice on legal queries from business stakeholders.
• Prepare legal risk reports for submission to committees.
• Manage relationships with external counsel for legal issues.
• Support dispute resolution and litigation matters.

Skills

Legal compliance

Risk management

Contract negotiation

Communication skills

Commercial acumen

Education

Recognised degree in Law

Postgraduate qualifications in Law

Job description

Overview

As a Senior Legal Counsel for Wealth, Retail Banking & Private Bank (WRB), you will provide expert legal guidance and strategic counsel across diverse financial services within the United Arab Emirates, specifically operating out of Dubai. Your role includes ensuring regulatory compliance, conducting risk assessments, and supporting business growth through effective legal risk management and transactional advice.

Key aspects of this role include driving best practices across legal and regulatory adherence, crafting fit-for-purpose documentation to standardise processes regionally, and fostering a culture of integrity and compliance aligned with our Group Code of Conduct and 'Here for Good' values. You will interface with business units to design and implement legal solutions that support innovative banking products and service delivery, ensuring operational excellence and legal robustness.

This role requires providing timely, pragmatic advice on new laws and regulatory changes affecting the WRB space, overseeing external legal expenditures, and coordinating across regional teams to embed legal and compliance excellence. You will also spearhead legal training initiatives to enhance awareness and promote consistent standards within the bank.

Through your work, you will contribute meaningfully to the bank's vision, ensuring that our legal frameworks support sustainable business practices and uphold the highest ethical standards.

Key Responsibilities

• Conduct comprehensive reviews of legal documentation including Terms and Conditions, credit arrangements, facility letters, product and ancillary contractual materials, ensuring absolute adherence to applicable laws and internal policies.
• Maintain up-to-date knowledge of all relevant legal areas impacting Private Bank, Wealth Management and Retail Banking such as contract law, securities regulation, taxation, financial product regulation, derivative instruments, and cross-border legal considerations.
• Provide swift, accurate, and commercially sensitive responses and advices to legal queries from business stakeholders, cultivating a reputation as a trusted legal advisor and collaborator.
• Critically analyse external legal opinions to ensure they align with commercial realities and legal correctness, offering alternative, pragmatic legal solutions where applicable.
• Provide swift, accurate, and commercially sensitive responses to legal queries from business stakeholders, cultivating a reputation as a trusted legal advisor and collaborator.
• Implement and uphold policies that minimise legal exposure whilst enabling business agility within the UAE (including DIFC jurisdiction).
• Develop and refine processes to promote effective legal risk management across Private Bank, Wealth and Retail Banking, supplying training and practical tools to enhance compliance and operational effectiveness.
• Prepare detailed reports on legal risks for submission to Group and Business risk committees, ensuring transparency and proactive management of legal matters.
• Represent the Legal function in governance forums, providing thorough review and articulation of legal risk issues, mitigation strategies, and approvals for management consideration.
• Support dispute resolution and litigation matters, working closely with the Group Dispute Resolution team to coordinate strategy and documentation.
• Manage relationships with external counsel to ensure quality, cost efficiency, and alignment with the bank’s objectives, including defining scope of work and overseeing deliverables.

Competencies

• Action Oriented: Proactively drives initiatives, resolves issues decisively while maintaining quality.
• Collaboration: Works effectively across diverse teams and geographies to achieve shared outcomes.
• Customer Focus: Understands and anticipates client needs, delivering tailored legal solutions.
• Clarity & Guidance: Communicates complex legal concepts clearly to ensure understanding.
• Manages Ambiguity: Navigates complex and evolving regulatory landscapes with agility and sound judgment.
• Develops Talent: Supports the growth and learning of others, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
• Decision Quality: Makes informed, timely, and effective decisions balancing risk and commercial factors.
• Courage & Integrity: Upholds ethical standards, addresses challenges with confidence and resilience.
• Technical Competencies: Demonstrates expert-level knowledge of banking law, regulatory compliance, contract negotiation, and risk management within the financial services sector.
• Strategic Mindset: Aligns legal activities with broader business strategies to facilitate sustainable growth.

Our Ideal Candidate

The successful candidate will possess a comprehensive legal education with a recognised degree and postgraduate qualifications in Law. Professional admission as a solicitor, attorney, barrister, or advocate is essential, demonstrating the capability to practice law effectively.

Bilingual proficiency in English and Arabic is preferred to facilitate communication within the highly diverse regional market, although English proficiency is mandatory.

Relevant experience in private legal practice or an in-house legal team focusing on banking, particularly within Private Banking and Wealth Management sectors, is highly desirable. Candidates should display sharp commercial acumen, strong interpersonal capabilities, and an appreciation for multi-cultural environments.

Key attributes include adeptness in managing complex, geographically dispersed client and product portfolios, with an ability to collaborate across countries, regions, and business units. A solid understanding of risk management frameworks and regulatory environments specific to the UAE and broader Middle East jurisdictions will ensure success.

Judgmental soundness in balancing business objectives with regulatory compliance, reputational risk, and ethical standards is imperative, along with demonstrated resilience, integrity, and independence.

About Standard Chartered

We\'re an international bank, nimble enough to act, big enough for impact. For more than 170 years, we\'ve worked to make a positive difference for our clients, communities, and each other. We question the status quo, love a challenge and enjoy finding new opportunities to grow and do better than before. If you\'re looking for a career with purpose and you want to work for a bank making a difference, we want to hear from you. You can count on us to celebrate your unique talents and we can\'t wait to see the talents you can bring us.

Our purpose, to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, together with our brand promise, to be here for good are achieved by how we each live our valued behaviours. When you work with us, you\'ll see how we value difference and advocate inclusion.

Our Values in Action

• Do the right thing and are assertive, challenge one another, and live with integrity, while putting the client at the heart of what we do
• Never settle, continuously striving to improve and innovate, keeping things simple and learning from doing well, and not so well
• Are better together, we can be ourselves, be inclusive, see more good in others, and work collectively to build for the long term

What we offer

In line with our Fair Pay Charter, we offer a competitive salary and benefits to support your mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing.

• Core bank funding for retirement savings, medical and life insurance, with flexible and voluntary benefits available in some locations.
• Time-off including annual leave, parental/maternity (20 weeks), sabbatical (12 months maximum) and volunteering leave (3 days), along with minimum global standards for annual and public holiday, which is combined to 30 days minimum.
• Flexible working options based around home and office locations, with flexible working patterns.
• Proactive wellbeing support through Unmind, a market-leading digital wellbeing platform, development courses for resilience and other human skills, global Employee Assistance Programme, sick leave, mental health first-aiders and all sorts of self-help toolkits
• A continuous learning culture to support your growth, with opportunities to reskill and upskill and access to physical, virtual and digital learning.
• Being part of an inclusive and values driven organisation, one that embraces and celebrates our unique diversity, across our teams, business functions and geographies - everyone feels respected and can realise their full potential.