Legal Counsel

Ecotricity; Stroud; Hybrid; GBP 40,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading green energy company in the UK is seeking a qualified Legal Counsel to join their in-house Legal Team in Stroud. The role involves managing various legal and corporate affairs, focusing particularly on employment law and commercial litigation. Candidates should have 1-3 years of post-qualification experience, strong communication skills, and the ability to work in a fast-paced environment. The position offers a hybrid working model, along with generous benefits such as a healthcare plan, pension contributions, and a variety of company discounts.

Benefits

Healthcare plan

Life assurance

Generous pension contribution

Volunteering Day

Various company discounts

25 days holiday plus bank holidays

Cycle to work scheme

Onsite parking

Qualifications

• Post-qualification experience in law preferably in employment or commercial litigation.
• Strong communication skills for drafting and reviewing legal documents.
• Ability to manage multiple clients and case loads effectively.

Responsibilities

• Manage non-contentious and contentious employment matters directly.
• Support development of employment policies and compensation packages.
• Draft and review contracts, advising business teams on risks.

Skills

Employment law experience

Commercial litigation knowledge

Written communication

Verbal communication

Time management

Attention to detail

Education

1-3 years post-qualification experience

Job description

About The Role

We are looking for someone to join our in house Legal Team as Legal Counsel with a broad range of responsibilities. We are a small, busy, friendly team managing all of the legal and corporate affairs at Ecotricity. We are particularly interested in candidates with experience in employment law (including contentious and non-contentious employment) or commercial litigation, but your workload won’t be restricted to those areas, this is a very diverse role, working in Ecotricity. Your responsibilities will vary depending on your experience and career development aim. If you are driven and efficient self-starter who enjoys a wide variety of legal work, often delivered to a tight deadline. Used to managing a busy case load and multiple clients whilst keeping the wider aim in mind. We would love to hear from you.

This role requires an office presence 4 days per week based at head office in Stroud, Gloucestershire.

Core Responsibilities

Employment

• Working closely with our People team and business team managers on both non-contentious and contentious employment matters
• Supporting the development of our employment policies and compensation and benefits packages
• Managing Employment Tribunal processes in person where appropriate or instructing and managing external counsel
• Developing Ecotricity’s inhouse employment law and practice know-how.Litigation and dispute resolution
• Identifying, investigating and resolving complex queries and disputes
• Drafting letters of claim
• Helping to compile evidence for court proceedings
• Assisting the debt recovery team with the recovery of debt, preparing claims and managing court proceedings
• Instructing and managing external counsel

Commercial

• Reviewing customer and supplier T&Cs and related documents, advising business teams on risk and making changes to protect the Group’s interests
• Drafting and reviewing a wide range of contracts including consultancy arrangements, contracts for products and services, and partnership/endorsement contracts, and negotiating these with counterparties
• Supporting procurement processes
• Advising on football sponsorship and endorsement agreements

Other

• Advising on legal and regulatory compliance matters
• Reviewing and negotiating contracts through the project life cycle for sun parks, wind farms and battery storage systemsSupporting the planning and development team with management of the group’s property portfolio, including our renewable assets and developments as well as the company estate
• Instructing and managing external counsel
• Researching legal matters and reporting your findings
• Supporting and working closely with your colleagues in the Legal and Data Protection teams

About You

You are an efficient self-starter with an interest in a wide variety of legal work and the ability to adapt in an environment where no two days are the same. You will be passionate about wanting to make a difference, about changing the way we live. You are happy picking up queries and matters outside of your immediate comfort zone, and you pay attention to detail whilst keeping commercials in mind.

Essential skills

• This role will suit a candidate with 1-3 years’ post-qualification experience, however, as an equal opportunities employer, we would welcome applications from appropriately experienced legal executives or paralegals as well as from more recently qualified solicitors with pre-qualification commercial experience in the energy sector or other regulated businesses, or in HR in other business sectors.
• Excellent written & verbal communication and time management skills
• Accuracy, tenacity, diplomacy & integrity.

About Us

What's in it for you...

• Healthcare plan, life assurance and generous pension contribution
• Volunteering Day
• Hybrid Working
• Various company discounts (including shops, gyms, days out and events)
• Holiday of 25 days (plus bank holidays) & ability to buy/sell days
• Cycle to work scheme, car pooling and onsite parking available

As a valued member of the team, you will be supporting the Group Environmental Policy and its associated sustainability objectives and targets.

Flexibility statement

The fast moving nature of the company's business means that from time to time you may be asked to perform duties or tasks outside of your original job description on an ad hoc basis. This allows the company to use its people in the best possible way at all times and helps the employees to make their contribution in a changing environment.

Ecotricity is Britain's greenest energy company. When we started back in 1995, we were the first company in the world to provide a new kind of electricity - the green kind.

Our mission was, and remains, to change the way energy is made and used in Britain - by replacing fossil fuels with clean, renewable energy.

We don't just supply green energy, we use the money from our customers' bills to make it ourselves too - we build windmills, sun parks and green gasmills in Britain. We call this turning 'bills into mills'. Some of our biggest achievements to date include building Britain's first megawatt windmill and the country's first grid-scale sun park, as well as building our first green gasmill, generating 100% green gas from a source that we will never run out of grass.

We don't just focus on energy though- we built the Electric Highway, Britain's leading network of electric vehicle charging points; we helped Forest Green Rovers become the greenest football club in the world; and we launched Britain's greenest mobile phone service, Ecotalk, where they use the money from their customers' bills to protect and regenerate Britain's lost rainforests.

Ecotricity is an equal opportunities employer and is committed to providing equality for all.