Guy's & St Thomas' Foundation
Senior Legal Council
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Senior Legal Counsel
Application Deadline: 18 August 2026
Department: Operations - Legal
Employment Type: Permanent
Location: London, Hybrid
Compensation: £73,000 - £78,000 / year
Description
The Senior Legal Counsel is the first port of call for colleagues putting together and advising on new legal arrangements and documenting our leading health partnerships and fundraising activities. The Senior Legal Counsel works with the Foundation’s Legal team in providing legal advice and guidance for the Foundation’s innovative, impact-led programmes and activities, supporting our fundraising team alongside our fundraising compliance manager, and our work with Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. This role also assists with varied internal governance and compliance matters.
Key Responsibilities
Charitable Partnerships (Impact on Urban Health)
- Identify relevant legal and compliance considerations on projects and activities within the IoUH team and work with IoUH to put in place appropriate mechanisms or policies to manage issues that are identified.
- Structure and assist colleagues with drafting and negotiating agreements for a wide variety of charitable partnerships, including commercial contracts, grants, IP licences, novel investment models, revenue-sharing arrangements and data agreements.
- Act as a thought partner with the team to advise on the structuring, legal risks and strategic implications of partnerships and future opportunities.
- Maintain and appropriately file correspondence and documentation relating to commercial contracts.
Fundraising (Charities)
- Identify and advise on relevant legal and regulatory considerations in respect of our fundraising activities and work with our fundraising compliance manager and the fundraising team to ensure our fundraising activities are carried out in accordance with the relevant regulations.
- Drafting and supporting colleagues in negotiating a variety of fundraising agreements, including charity of the year agreements, commercial participation agreements, sponsorship agreements and pledge agreements.
- Advise on relevant governance matters relating to fundraising activities.
- Work closely with our fundraising compliance manager to ensure data protection aspects of our fundraising activities are managed appropriately.
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Procedure and Policy Efficiencies
- Draft, maintain and update our internal guidelines, policies and standard-form documents.
- Create policy and process efficiencies.
- Act as deputy data protection lead, supporting the primary data protection lead through providing training to colleagues and ensuring the Foundation’s mandated practice is understood and followed.
Tailored Partnerships
- Consider legal considerations, and appropriate processes, for working with certain partners (e.g. regulatory, private gain, data protection, policy), including advising on due diligence procedures and tailoring our standard form templates.
- Work with cross-functional stakeholders on longer-term projects to change our partnership models to cede power to the communities we work with, whilst balancing this against our charity law obligations.
Cross-Functional Work
- Work with cross-functional stakeholders, including Policy, Influencing & Communications, Data, Evaluation & Learning and the Executive Team to advise on cross-team collaboration, opportunities, issues and risks relating to our charitable partnerships.
- Assist teams such as Endowment, Systems, and People & Culture on their legal needs, including drafting, negotiating and agreeing documents and being the first port-of-call for a variety of legal issues.
- Lead on specific projects for either individual directorates or cross-directorate projects.
- Act as business partner to the Fundraising teams on a variety of issues, including advising and supporting them with drafting, negotiating and advising on a wide range of fundraising agreements.
- Act as business partner to the Endowment team, ensuring they have the legal support required for the smooth running of their activities.
Governance and Legal
- Act as Company Secretary for the Foundation’s three subsidiary companies.
- Work with the Foundation’s Legal Director & Company Secretary in advising colleagues on legal and governance matters.
- Undertake research into specific legal issues or matters of best practice and provide training to Legal team colleagues on these issues.
- Identify need for, organise and run training sessions on key legal and compliance issues to Foundation staff.
- Deputise for the Legal Director & Company Secretary when required.
Role responsibilities are not exhaustive, and you would be reasonably expected to take on wider tasks that are commensurate with the level of your role.
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Skills, Knowledge and Expertise
Skills, abilities, and attributes:
- Legal research skills
- Self-starter who is adaptable, works with integrity, and exhibits the Foundation’s enterprising, collaborative and delivery-minded cultural and behavioural values
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
- Detail oriented
- Good interpersonal skills and able to effectively liaise with both internal and external communities
- Problem solving skills, able to use initiative and actively seeks pragmatic solutions
- Good planning and organisational skills, able to work to multiple prioritised tasks, targets and deadlines, with careful attention to detail
- Team player, with an ability to create effective working relationships
- Ability to embed diversity, equity and inclusion in everything we do
Knowledge, experience, and qualifications:
- Qualified, experienced solicitor (5-6 years PQE or equivalent)
- Experience in drafting and reviewing commercial contracts (Essential)
- Preparation of guidance notes and training materials (Essential)
- Sound knowledge of the law of England and Wales (Essential)
- Familiarity with commercial contracts and contract law (Essential)
- Experience in law and regulation within a fundraising environment (Highly Desirable)
- Experience in drafting and reviewing grant agreements (Desirable)
- Familiarity with the charity sector and charity law (Desirable)
- Some familiarity with health/social care/voluntary sector technical language and organisations (Desirable)
- Some familiarity with basic financial and grants related terms and concepts (Desirable)
Benefits
- Contributory pension
- Annual health and wellbeing personal allowance
- Enhanced maternity, paternity, and parental leave pay accessible without length of service requirements.
- Health and wellbeing programme that offers optional free yearly health check-ups.
- Support for healthy eating via fruit bowls and onsite lunch facilities.
- Agile working, flexible hours, and supportive IT kit.
- Shower facilities and bike lock area.
- Generous annual leave (27 days + bank holidays)
- Subsidies for glasses
- Employee Assistance Programme
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