Legal Counsel

**About us**:
At GoCardless we believe bank payments are the best way to pay and get paid. We also believe that bank account data is a powerful tool to make better, faster decisions. We're making it easy to use both
- for businesses everywhere.

GoCardless is used for domestic and international payments by 75,000+ organisations and counting, processing more than $30 billion across 30 countries. We're an award-winning London based fintech, with additional offices in Riga, Paris and Melbourne.

**The role**:
We're approaching 'Legal Risk' in Financial Services in a new way.
- We are ready to serve everyone, if we wanted to - we ensure Legal Risk does not constrain the business but empowers it to achieve its goals;
- We create the best possible customer experience - we want our customers (both internal and external) to look forward to going through our processes; and
- We aim to automate wherever possible - we don't like inefficiencies nor do we believe that real risk mitigation is achieved by throwing people at the problem.

**What excites you**:
The Legal Function is at the forefront of GoCardless' expansion. We must ensure that GoCardless adopts, implements and maintains forward-thinking and appropriate processes and controls, often coming across new challenges or issues that require innovative solutions.
- As Legal Counsel (2 to 5 years of work experience), you will focus on a number of legal areas and advise our French and UK teams across the business.
- You will take a consultative approach and work closely with the business
- never working alone, or able to concentrate on purely legal issues. As a member of a busy legal team you will also be expected to contribute to team-wide initiatives.
- Some of the key elements of the role include:

- Supporting and advising as a business partner of the sales and support teams predominantly in France and the UK
- Working on specific projects, for example when we roll out new templates
- Reviewing and negotiating customer, partnership and supplier contracts by providing pragmatic and commercial support in line ith our playbooks
- Supervising paralegals on specific matters
- Instructing and managing external legal counsel
- Helping to build out and maintain self-help tools, playbooks and guides for the legal team and for the wider business
- Responding to the business by answering legal questions submitted through the GoCardless legal ticketing system
- Supporting the People team on French employment matters
- Focusing on constant process improvement related to high volume work - for example by iterating our contracting automation and management workflows
- Being prepared to deal with any legal issue, at any time.

**What excites us**:
As a technology business, it helps if you have had experience in a similar area, or perhaps you have a keen interest in tech outside of your day to day work.

We'd love to hear from you if:

- You have a Master's degree in international contract or business law
- You have between 2 and 5 years' experience as a Legal Counsel in a fast paced environment
- You have an excellent knowledge of contract law (Civil and Common Law)
- You are a fluent English speaker
- You grasp new legal concepts quickly, and are not afraid to use your common sense
- You have some experience and appetite for legal project work
- You are able to appropriately challenge ways of working and not be afraid to ask why?
- You are a self-starter who is proactive and you are willing to roll up your sleeves to get the job done
- Your communication skills are first class, and you are able to distil complex and cumbersome legalese into understandable English
- You love tech and tools, and love exploring how they can contribute to efficiency and customer experience.
- You enjoy project management and thrive on operational efficiency.
- You do not take yourself seriously and like laughing
- You are easy to work with, and want to work in a fun, fast-growing and challenging environment.

Bonus points if:

- You have knowledge of FCA requirements or payment services
- You have experience with selling and supporting SaaS solutions

We don't expect you to meet every requirement. If you're excited by this role, we encourage you to apply.

**(some of) The good stuff**:

- **Wellbeing**:

- stay healthy with dedicated support and medical cover
- **Adaptive Working**:

- allows you to work flexibly, around your lifestyle
- **Equity **-** **all permanently employed GCs get equity to help you make a valuable contribution
- **Parental leave **-** **to suit everyone embarking on life's great adventure
- **Time off**:

- generous holiday allowance, + 3 annual volunteer days, + 4 annual business-wide wellness days ('GC Fridays')

**Life at GoCardless**:
We're an organisation defined by our values; We **_start with why_**_ _before we begin any project, to ensure it's aligned with our mission. We **_make it happen_**, working with urgency and taking personal accountability for getting things