Associate Legal Counsel Leeds, UK

GoCardless Ltd; Leeds; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Wellbeing

Work away scheme

Adaptive Working

Parental leave

Learning Budget

Time off & wellness days

Job summary

GoCardless Ltd, a Mollie company, is seeking an Associate Legal Counsel (5 to 8 years PQE) to advise UK teams and negotiate strategic Partner deals. You will work within a busy legal team in the UK, with opportunities for senior titles and involvement across contracts, SaaS, and product launches.

Candidates must be UK-qualified and able to navigate FCA requirements and IP matters. The role emphasizes collaboration, efficiency, and business-focused legal support for GoCardless’ global platform.

Qualifications

• We’re looking for a lawyer with private practice training and/or in-house experience in a fast-paced environment.
• Technology mindset with interest in tech beyond daily work.
• UK-qualified solicitor or barrister with relevant PQE and practising certificate.

Responsibilities

• Support and advise the Partner team and negotiate strategic Partner deals.
• Support and advise UK GTM teams on high-value deals.
• Review and negotiate customer, partnership and supplier contracts providing pragmatic commercial input.
• Instruct and manage external legal counsel and supervise junior lawyers.
• Build self-help tools, playbooks, and guides for the legal team and wider business.
• Drive process improvements in contracting automation and workflows.

Skills

Contract negotiation

Marketing compliance

IP management

SaaS experience

API understanding

Job description

GoCardless, a Mollie company, is a global leader in bank payments. Over 100,000 businesses, from start-ups to household names, use GoCardless to collect, manage and send bank payments through Direct Debit, real-time payments and open banking. With US$130bn+ processed annually across 30+ countries, we handle recurring and one-off payments without the chasing, stress, or expensive fees. Our end-to-end payment platform also features AI-powered solutions to improve payment success and reduce fraud, alongside connections to over 350 platforms businesses use everyday.
We are headquartered in the UK, with teams and operations spanning North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. For more information, please visit www.gocardless.com and follow us on LinkedIn @GoCardless.
Mollie is the leading payments and financial services partner for business, rooted in Europe, with global reach.

The role

As Associate Legal Counsel (5 to 8 years of PQE), you will focus on a number of legal areas and advise UK teams across the business.You will take a consultative approach and work closely with the business - never working alone, or able to concentrate on purely legal issues. As a member of a busy legal team you will also be expected to contribute to team-wide initiatives.

For people with more senior experience, we are open to look into a Sr. Legal Counsel title.

The key responsibilities of this role include:

• Support and advise the Partner team and negotiate strategic Partner deals
• Support and advise the Go-To-Market teams in the UK on the most strategic and/or highest value deals
• Work closely with your manager to support on strategic projects
• Work on specific projects, for example when we roll out new templates/launch new products
• Review and negotiate customer, partnership and supplier contracts by providing pragmatic and commercial support
• Supervise more junior lawyers on negotiations or on specific files
• Instruct and manage external legal counsel
• Build out and maintain self-help tools, playbooks and guides for the legal team and for the wider business
• Focus on constant process improvement related to high volume work - for example by iterating our contracting automation and management workflows
• Be prepared to deal with any legal issue, at any time.

Desired skills

We’re looking for a lawyer with private practice training and/or in-house experience in a fast-paced environment. You will be driven, able to work independently and able to apply your existing knowledge and approach across a very wide range of legal (and quasi-legal) areas. As a technology business, it helps if you have had experience in a similar area, or perhaps you have a keen interest in tech outside of your day to day work.

Candidates must be qualified in the UK.

We’d love to hear from you if:

• You have experience negotiating complex contracts with sophisticated counterparties
• You have experience reviewing marketing materials in accordance with applicable laws and regulations
• You grasp new legal concepts quickly, and are not afraid to use your common sense.
• You are able to appropriately challenge ways of working and not be afraid to ask why.
• You are a self-starter who is proactive and you are willing to roll up your sleeves to get the job done.
• Your communication skills are first class, and you are able to distil complex and cumbersome legalese into understandable English.
• You love tech and tools, and love exploring how they can contribute to efficiency and customer experience.
• You enjoy project management and thrive on operational efficiency.
• You are easy to work with, do not take yourself seriously and want to work in a fun, fast-growing and challenging environment.
• You have knowledge of FCA requirements or payment services.
• You have experience in IP management and handling IP related issues.
• You have experience with selling and supporting SaaS solutions.
• You can explain what an API is.

Base salary ranges are based on role, job level, location, and market data. Please note that whilst we strive to offer competitive compensation, our approach is to pay between the minimum and the mid-point of the pay range until performance can be assessed in role. Offers will take into account level of experience, interview assessment, budgets and parity between you and fellow employees at GoCardless doing similar work.

(some of) The good stuff

• Wellbeing - stay healthy with dedicated support and medical cover
• Work away scheme - gives you the option to work away from your country of residence for up to 90 days in any 12 month period
• Adaptive Working - allows you to work flexibly, around your lifestyle
• Parental leave - to suit everyone embarking on life's great adventure
• Learning Budget - lead your own development with an annual learning budget
• Time off - generous holiday allowance, + 3 annual volunteer days, + 4 annual business-wide wellness days (‘GC Fridays’)

Life at GoCardless

We're an organisation defined by our values ; We start with why before we begin any project, to ensure it’s aligned with our mission. We make it happen, working with urgency and taking personal accountability for getting things done. We act with integrity, always. We care deeply about what we do and we know it's essential that we be humble whilst we do it. Our Values form part of the GoCardless DNA, and are used to not only help us nurture and develop our culture, but to deliver impactful work that will help us to achieve our vision.

Diversity & Inclusion

As of April 2025, we