General Counsel jobs in Canada

Associate General Counsel

Department: Legal Services

Type: Permanent

Location: London, UK

Posting Date: June 30, 2025

At OPTrust, paying pensions today, preserving pensions for tomorrow is our mission and business.

When you choose OPTrust, you join a team of smart, talented people who fuel our success and have a passion for pensions. Everyone at OPTrust – from London, Toronto, and Sydney – makes a meaningful impact. Our environment is fast paced, but we find time to have fun and give back to the community as well. Our strength resides in our team members with different backgrounds and perspectives creating an inclusive and fulfilling place to work for everyone.

What OPTrust Offers You

• Unique culture rooted in our core values – collaboration and teamwork, integrity, respect, flexibility, and excellence and continuous improvement – reflected across the team.

• Dedicated business strategy for inclusion, diversity and equity with multiple, meaningful opportunities to participate.

• Flexible, hybrid work model being implemented to balance the benefits of working from home and the collaborative teamwork experience in the office.

• Participation in a pension benefit scheme.

• A purpose-driven environment, including the opportunity to contribute to OPTrust’s climate change and responsible investing programs.

• Professional development opportunities and learning initiatives including access to LinkedIn Learning, in-house speaker series, tuition reimbursement program and professional association memberships.

• Comprehensive benefits package focused on your health and wellness.

• Competitive vacation package and time away from work such as work-life balance days.

If you strive for excellence and continuous improvement, value a collaborative and flexible team culture, and approach everything with integrity and respect, then we invite you to apply to join our team!

About the Role

OPTrust, a major Canadian public pension plan and institutional investor based in Toronto, Canada, is looking for an exceptional transaction lawyer to lead our legal function in our London office.

This is a unique opportunity to work closely with a small but exceptional investment team in support of our private investments mandate in Europe, which invests and manages part of our more than C$26 billion pool of assets.

In this highly collaborative role, you will be directly advising and partnering with the London-based investment team, supporting and providing them with pro-active, solutions-based legal and risk management advice on a wide range of domestic and international transactional and corporate matters. A motivated self-starter with a partnering focused mindset, you will find yourself exposed to a broad range of investment transactions with a focus on both direct and indirect private equity, fund, and infrastructure investments. Additionally, you will assist in the management of local regulatory requirements applicable to OPTrust and its UK-based subsidiaries as well as advise on day-to-day operational matters in London.

What You’ll Do

• Support and advise the investment team with sound counsel on transactional matters

• Participate as an active partner with the investment team and business units across the organization, using the opportunity to guide and support decision making and mitigate risk

• Work directly with internal Legal, Tax, Compliance, Investment Finance, Communications, and others to provide business friendly and creative legal and investment solutions

• Advise on committee matters and support the development of internal investment, governance and risk management policies for the London office

• Provide corporate governance and regulatory compliance advice and support the operations of the London office

• Partner with your Toronto and Sydney based legal colleagues on a variety of innovative initiatives

• Instruct and manage external counsel

What You Bring

• LLB (or equivalent) and qualified to practice law in the U.K.

• 8+ years of experience in private equity, mergers & acquisitions, and/or infrastructure at a top-tier law firm or in-house legal department

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, adaptable and flexible

• Ability to work with minimal supervision

• Enjoys working collaboratively with many different stakeholders

• Client-oriented approach and a demonstrated ability to build trust

• Strong legal and business judgment

• Exceptional organizational and analytical skills with the ability to project manage critical work to completion

• Willingness to travel, as occasionally required

• Exemplify OPTrust’s values: collaboration and teamwork, integrity, respect, flexibility, excellence, and continuous improvement.

Please submit your application via Workday by July 14, 2025.

Serving a membership as diverse as ours and investing in a global market means cultivating an environment that embraces inclusion, diversity, and equity in everything we do. OPTrust is an organization engaged in building on our unique and diverse strengths. We know a diversity of backgrounds, cultures, gender identities and perspectives are critical to achieving our shared goals.

If you require accommodation at any time during the recruitment process, please send a message to careers@optrust.com , or discuss your needs with the Talent Acquisition Consultant during the telephone screening. We will do our best to work with you and provide appropriate accommodation.

As an organization we’re seeking ways to respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Call to Action 92. We are working with the Canadian Council for Indigenous Business to build bridges with Indigenous communities and partners, and we have created an employee-led Reconciliation Working Group that will work with Indigenous experts to identify a path to reconciliation for our organization.

We thank all interested applicants, however only those under consideration will be contacted.