Whitby Wood
Legal Advisor
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Line Manager - Legal Director & Company Secretary
Location - London office - 3 days per week in the office (mandatory)
Hours - Full time or part time
Legal Advisor
Purpose of the role
The Legal Advisor is Whitby Wood’s in-house point of contact for contractual and commercial matters, working closely with the Legal Director & Company Secretary to protect the practice’s position while helping projects and bids move forward at pace.
The role owns the negotiation of appointments, warranties and related project documentation from first draft through to execution, advises project directors and bid teams on contractual risk, and helps build commercial and contractual confidence across the business. It is a hands-on, business-facing role calling for sound judgement, pragmatic negotiation, and the confidence to deal directly with clients, contractors, funders and their solicitors.
Role and responsibilities
- Review and negotiate consultancy appointments, collateral warranties, novation agreements, non-disclosure agreements and other project documentation, from first draft through to execution.
- Lead negotiations directly with clients, developers, main contractors, funders and their solicitors, and see matters through to a signed document.
- Advise project directors and bid teams on contractual risk.
- Support bids and tenders — pre-qualification questionnaires, framework applications, procurement documentation, and the contractual and insurance sections of fee proposals.
- Act as first point of contact for contractual and commercial queries from across the UK offices, and support our associated practices globally as required.
- Maintain and develop Whitby Wood’s suite of standard forms, preferred wording, fallback positions and precedent library, and improve the way contract review is recorded and reported internally.
- Advise on general commercial and corporate matters, including supplier and software terms, data protection and UK GDPR compliance.
- Deliver practical training and briefings to engineers and project leaders on contract risk and commercial awareness, and help raise contractual literacy across the practice.
- General legal and commercial support as required.
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Criteria
Essential
- A minimum of five years’ experience reviewing, drafting and negotiating consultancy appointments and/or construction contracts.
- Law degree or equivalent qualification — for example the CILEX route, a law conversion course, or a postgraduate qualification in construction or commercial law. An equivalent professional qualification in contract or commercial management will also be considered, and full qualification as a solicitor is not required provided the practical contract experience is there.
- Detailed working knowledge of the standard industry forms and their typical amendments
- Strong pragmatic negotiation skills. You will negotiate directly with clients, developers, contractors, funders and their external solicitors, balancing legal risk and commercial efficacy.
- Sound commercial judgement, and the ability to distinguish real risk from theoretical risk and give proportionate, usable advice.
- The credibility and approachability to act as a trusted partner to the business: responsive, pragmatic, comfortable with senior stakeholders,
- A working understanding of professional indemnity insurance and how it interacts with contractual liability
- Able to work autonomously, manage a varied caseload of competing matters, and prioritise against live bid and project deadlines.
- Clear, concise written and verbal communication, including the ability to explain legal risk in plain English to a non-legal audience.
- Strong presentation skills. You will need to convey contractual risk clearly and confidently to a non-legal audience. This means judging the right level of detail for the audience and being persuasive in the room, not only on paper.
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Desirable
- Experience gained in an engineering, architectural or other professional services consultancy
- Qualification as a solicitor or CILEX practitioner.
- Experience of international and cross-border contracting.
- Company secretarial or corporate governance experience.
Location and working pattern
The role is based at our London office, 160 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8EZ.
Attendance in the office for a minimum of three days per week is mandatory.
We are open to full-time or part-time applications and will discuss hours and working pattern with the right candidate, subject to the three-day office requirement above.
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