Legal Counsel

JD GROUP; Bury; Hybrid; GBP 55,000 - 75,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading retail company in Bury seeks a Legal Counsel with 3+ years PQE to join their dynamic legal team. Responsibilities include advising on commercial contracts, supporting junior members, and creating standard agreements. The ideal candidate has strong experience in consumer law and excellent negotiation skills. This role offers a competitive salary, staff discounts, and flexible working patterns, along with opportunities to work with international sports fashion brands.

Benefits

Competitive salary and benefits package

Staff discount across the JD Group

Flexible working patterns available

Multicultural working environment

Qualifications

• Qualified solicitor with minimum 3 years PQE.
• Experience in commercial contracts within a reputable in-house or law firm.
• Ability to collaborate with stakeholders at all levels.

Responsibilities

• Advise on all types of commercial contracts.
• Support junior team members in their development.
• Create and improve standard template agreements.

Skills

UK qualified solicitor

Commercial contract negotiation

Consumer law understanding

Data privacy knowledge

Effective communication

Project management skills

Education

Qualified solicitor 3+ years PQE

Job description

Overview

Legal Counsel (3+ years PQE). Permanent role (minimum 3 days a week in the Bury office).

JD Group

JD Sports Fashion Plc (JD) is a leading FTSE 100 international multichannel retailer of sports, fashion and outdoor brands. Established in 1981, with a single store in the North West, JD now operates internationally in over 32 territories. The JD Group has over 3,400 stores across a number of retail fascias and embraces the latest online and instore digital technology, providing it with a truly multichannel and international platform for future growth.

The Role

This is an important role in the JD Legal Team working on a wide variety of commercial contracts, particularly supporting our IT and Supply Chain teams. We are looking for candidates with significant experience of reviewing, marking up and negotiating a variety of commercial contracts, ideally with consumer law and advertising and marketing experience. You will have some experience of working for a retailer, FMCG or consumer facing business. The Legal Team is dynamic and hard-working. As a member of the Legal Team, you will work across the whole JD Group, supporting our business globally, as well as supervising and developing more junior members of the team. We inspire our people to reach the highest levels of performance. To achieve these standards, we only recruit the best. All employees are highly skilled, self-motivated and in constant pursuit of commercial and pragmatic solutions for the JD Group.

Key Duties / Responsibilities

• You will advise and support the JD Group on all types of commercial contracts including providing advice on consumer, advertising and marketing queries.
• You will help support our more junior team members and help with their development.
• You will create standard template agreements, always look to create or improve working processes and provide training to the business and the Legal Team to develop their skills.
• You will also work closely with our Compliance team and the Group’s Data Protection Officer so experience in data protection and other regulations, that large corporates such as the JD Group are exposed to, is an advantage.
• Day to day you’ll work closely with business stakeholders from across the JD Group on various commercial contracts.
• You will have the chance to work on global projects with cross functional teams and will play a key role in rolling out training, policies and guidelines across the JD Group.

Skills / Experience / Knowledge Needed

• UK qualified solicitor – ideally 3+ years PQE.
• Training and previous experience in reviewing, drafting and advising on a wide range of commercial contracts within a respectable in-house role or law firm.
• Demonstrable experience of working with all levels of stakeholders in a large global corporate (including the executive leadership team).
• Good understanding of the evolving regulations particularly relating to consumer law, data privacy, competition law and advertising/marketing standards to be able to provide effective advice to the business.
• An effective communicator with demonstrable negotiating and drafting skills.
• Self-motivated, ambitious, team player with the ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment. Strong attention to detail as well as a commercial mindset with an ability to explain matters clearly and simply to non-legal stakeholders.
• Ability to think outside the box and support the Legal Team and the business in finding effective solutions.
• Evidence of previous project management skills to successfully deliver projects (including cross jurisdiction) and initiatives would be highly desirable.
• Experience of working in retail/FMCG/customer facing industry sector.

Benefits

• Competitive salary and benefits package
• Great staff discount across the JD Group
• Working in dynamic, multicultural retail sector and high profile, global work
• Interaction with international sports fashion brands
• Flexible working patterns available