Junior Lawyer

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join a world leading global organisation. Our client, a blue chip FMCG company, is currently seeking a Junior Lawyer based in Blackfriars. This is a full-time, temporary role for a period of 3 months (with possible extension up to 6 months), Monday to Friday, 36.25 hours per week, to start ASAP. The role is paying between £31,200 and £35,000 per annum, pro rata, depending on experience.

An opportunity has arisen to join one of the world's leading fast-moving consumer goods companies. Our products are sold in over 190 countries and, on any given day, 2 billion consumers worldwide use them. We own some of the best known and best loved brands, from long-established names like Dove, Sunlight, Knorr and Lipton to new innovations such as Pureit, our unique in-home water purifier. The role of the Legal Group is to protect the company and help it to win by providing objective advice and creative legal solutions.

This is a broad commercial legal role reporting to the General Counsel for Skin/Hair/Oral Care and Deodorants, but also working with the wider category team on cross-category initiatives. The role requires identification of legal risks and advice to cross-functional international business partners on a range of areas of commercial law including drafting and negotiating of contracts, legal advice on marketing and advertising law, intellectual property law, regulatory and compliance matters, distribution channels, pricing, privacy, e-commerce, data protection and competition law. The role represents a qualified solicitor to develop experience and skills as an in-house general practitioner.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

General
* Draft documents, letters of advice and agreements tailored to business partners' individual needs.
* Correspond with business partners, local internal and external lawyers and opposition lawyers.
* Attend meetings and calls where required, including presenting where appropriate.
* Take instructions from business partners, identify and explain legal risks to them, and propose solutions to help them navigate the risks.
* Conduct research into applicable areas of existing or emerging law.
* Develop and maintain good relationships with relevant Legal and business stakeholders.
* Prepare legal updates for, and share know how within, the Legal team.
* Prepare alerts and/or guidance notes for the business on hot topics.
* Assisting with the preparation and uploading of materials to company legal sites.
* Be an ambassador for the Category Legal team to the wider business' Legal community and company at large.
* Provide support to the legal team and keep him/her appraised of significant legal risks

Contract
Under decreasing degrees of supervision as skills improve:
* Draft/critique and negotiate commercial agreements ranging from confidentiality agreements, permission letters and service agreements to marketing agreements, distribution agreements and franchise agreements.
* Advise on best contractual structures to achieve business partner objectives.

Brand IP (trademarks, copyright, domain names)
* This is a minimal part of the role due to a dedicated person working on this but assistance may be required at times

Marketing law
* Provide legal advice and commercial risk analysis to the global marketing teams in relation to product innovations and brand projects
* Coordinate risk analysis with relevant global and local in-house legal functions, regulatory and R&D colleagues to evaluate the legality of and support for product claims in line with all relevant legal and regulatory laws and guidelines governing the cosmetics industry.
* Co-ordinate with relevant local legal colleagues and business partners to pro-actively coordinate and defend out-going and in-coming challenges in respect of product claims.
* Advise on eCommerce and "direct to consumer" initiatives.
* Advise in relation to sustainability initiatives.

Competition, corporate and regulatory law
* Develop working knowledge of EU competition law.
* Work with Regulatory Affairs to obtain good basic knowledge of regulatory law, to provide second opinions on interpretation and prepare legislative overviews on labelling, ingredients, claims etc.
* Co-ordinate Category relevant advice to M&A through Corporate Legal team during due diligence and Category and corporate governance advice during integration.

QUALIFICATIONS/EXPERIENCE
* Newly qualified or established solicitor having completed LPC and gained experience at reputable commercial firm, large multi-national FMCG company or private practice, as long as you have the adaptability to deal with an array of different matters, as below.
* Commercial legal experience and training undertaken to date to include experience of contracts, marketing law and intellectual property law.
* Experience of advising international clients useful.

PERSON SPECIFICATION
* Excellent attention to detail.
* Adaptable, proactive, keen to learn and take on increasing degrees of responsibility, ready to acquire autonomy in response to work well done.
* Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
* Strong organisational and prioritisation skills to cope with multiple stakeholders, competing deadlines and priorities, with requests often at very short notice.
* Team player, able to build strong relationships, including coordinating input from a number of global business partners, such as local Legal, R&D and Regulatory Affairs.
* Proficient in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint.
* Experience of using a trade mark platform such as Saegis would be desirable but not essential