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About the Role
Our Future Health is seeking an exceptional General Counsel to serve as its senior legal adviser and lead the Legal function. This broad and influential role involves advising the Board, Executive Team, and senior leaders on complex legal, commercial, and regulatory matters to ensure the organization delivers its mission responsibly and at pace. The role spans strategic partnerships, commercial contracting, public funding, charity law, governance, health data, technology, and intellectual property, with a focus on building a pragmatic and responsive Legal function.
Responsibilities
- Provide strategic, pragmatic, and commercially focused legal leadership.
- Operate at the intersection of law, ethics, science, technology, public purpose, and commercial partnerships.
- Act as the principal legal adviser, providing clear, practical, and risk-based advice to the Board, Executive Team, and senior leaders.
- Provide legal input into organizational strategy, major programmes, strategic partnerships, and significant commercial and operational decisions.
- Identify emerging legal and regulatory risks and translate complex issues into clear options and recommendations.
- Advise on responsibilities as a charitable organization, including charity law, governance, constitutional arrangements, and trustee/director duties.
- Advise on the legal implications of receiving and deploying significant government and public funding.
- Support relationships and contractual arrangements with government departments, NHS bodies, research organizations, and other public-sector partners.
- Lead the legal approach to significant commercial agreements, strategic partnerships, and procurement arrangements.
- Advise on and negotiate complex contracts with various organizations, including life sciences companies, technology providers, universities, research institutions, NHS organizations, and suppliers.
- Work with Data Protection Officer, Information Security, and Technology teams on legal and contractual matters related to data.
- Advise on intellectual property, licensing, and exploitation arising from research, technology development, and commercial collaborations.
- Develop contracting standards, templates, playbooks, and proportionate approval and escalation processes.
- Lead, develop, and support the Legal team, fostering a collaborative, high-performing function.
- Manage external legal advisers and ensure effective and proportionate use of external expertise.
Requirements
- Qualified lawyer with substantial post-qualification experience.
- Credibility, judgment, and breadth to operate as a senior legal adviser in a complex and high-profile organization.
- Ability to combine excellent technical legal expertise with pragmatism.
- Significant experience operating at General Counsel, Legal Director, or equivalent senior level.
- Broad commercial legal experience, including negotiating complex and strategically significant contracts and partnerships.
- Experience advising Boards, executives, and senior leaders on complex legal, governance, and risk matters.
- Strong understanding of corporate governance and the responsibilities of directors and/or charity trustees.
- Experience building and operating an effective in-house Legal function.
- Strong people leadership skills, with experience managing, coaching, and developing lawyers and junior legal colleagues.
- Experience managing external legal advisers and legal budgets.
- Excellent legal judgment and the ability to distinguish theoretical legal risk from risk material to organizational objectives.
- Ability to operate confidently in environments where legal, commercial, regulatory, ethical, and reputational considerations overlap.
- Excellent drafting, negotiation, and communication skills, with the ability to make complex issues understandable and actionable.
Skills
- Charity law
- Governance
- Charitable organization advice
- Public funding advice
- Contract negotiation
- Strategic partnerships
- Procurement
- Intellectual property
- Licensing
- Technology contracting
- Data protection
- Health data
- Information governance
- Commercial contracting
- Legal leadership
- Risk management
- People leadership
- Budget management
- Drafting
- Negotiation
- Communication
Location
- Central London office in Holborn
Work Type
- Flexible working arrangements
- Remote working arrangements
Experience Level
- Senior level
- Substantial post-qualification experience
Education Level
- Qualified lawyer
Salary/Compensations
- from £110,000
Benefits
- Generous Pension Scheme – employer contributions of up to 12%
- 30 Days Holiday + Bank Holidays
- Enhanced Parental Leave
- Cycle to Work Scheme
- Home & Tech Savings
- £1,000 Employee Referral Bonus
- Wellbeing Support – Access to Mental Health First Aiders, 24/7 online GP services and an Employee Assistance Programme
About the Company
- Our Future Health is the UK’s largest ever health research programme, bringing people together to develop new ways to detect, prevent and treat diseases.
Equal Opportunity
- We recognise the importance of having a diverse workforce and ensuring that all candidates, regardless of their background, have equitable access to our application process. We proactively encourage applicants who identify as having a disability, neurodiversity, or long-term health conditions to let us know if they require any reasonable adjustments as part of their application process.