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Corporate and Commercial Counsel

GoCardless

GoCardless

Legal
London, UK
Posted on Nov 13, 2024

GoCardless are here to support you and we’re committed to making the hiring process inclusive and accessible for everyone. If you need extra support or any adjustments made, please reach out to your Talent Partner.

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

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 85,000+ organisations and counting, processing more than $30 billion across 30 countries. We are headquartered in the UK, with additional offices in Australia, France, Latvia and the United States.

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.

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.

The role

  • As Corporate and Commercial Legal Counsel (3 to 5 years of PQE), you will focus on a number of corporate and commercial legal areas and advise 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.
  • The key responsibilities of this role include:
    • Supporting on corporate transactions, which could include a mixture of M&A deals (share or asset acquisitions) in different jurisdictions, but also transactions involving the share capital of our holding company
    • Supporting on corporate governance and company secretarial matters
    • Supporting and advising Sales teams in the UK
    • Working on specific projects, for example when we roll out new templates/launch new products
    • Supporting the marketing team with campaigns, using our Marketing Playbook as a guide
    • Working on strategic projects to comply with specific regulations
    • Supervising and training junior lawyers on specific projects and tasks
    • Instructing and managing external legal counsel
    • Supporting on building out and maintaining self-help tools, playbooks and guides for the legal team and for the wider business
    • 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.

Desired skills

We’re looking for a lawyer with private practice training and with broad experience in corporate matters (including M&A), corporate governance but also in contract law and general commercial matters. You will be driven, able to work independently and able to apply your existing knowledge and approach across a very wide range of legal (and quasi-legal) areas.

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 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 are easy to work with, and want to work in a fun, fast-growing and challenging environment.

Bonus points if:

  • You have experience of venture capital and complex share capital structures
  • You have experience in marketing matters
  • You have experience in IP matters
  • You have worked in an in-house role

Remember, 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
  • Work away scheme - you can apply to work away from your country of residence for up to 90 days in any 12 month period (in accordance with our work away policy)
  • Adaptive Working - Our hybrid workplace model fosters collaboration and flexibility, with in-office days determined at team level
  • Equity - all permanently employed GeeCees receive equity so we can share in the success we achieve together
  • 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 done. We act with integrity, always. We care deeply about what we do and we know it's essential that we be humble whilst we do it. Our Values form part of the GoCardless DNA, and are used to not only help us nurture and develop our culture, but to deliver impactful work that will help us to achieve our vision.

Diversity & Inclusion

We’re building the bank payment network of the future and our ambition is to move money anywhere, for anything, for anyone. If we’re going to achieve this goal, we need to build a team of ‘GeeCees’ that is as wonderfully diverse as the world we live in - with a multitude of perspectives, experiences & backgrounds.

We’ve got a long way to go, but here’s how we’re doing as of July 2024;

45% identify as women

23% identify as Black, Asian, Mixed or Other

10% identify as LGBTQIA+

9% identify as neurodiverse

2% identify as disabled

If you want to learn more, you can read about our Employee Resource Groups and objectives here as well as our latest D&I Report

Sustainability

We’re committed to reducing our impact on the environment, leaving a more sustainable world for future generations. In 2021 we became co-founders of the Tech Zero coalition, a group of businesses committed to taking climate action as part of the UNFCCC Race to Zero. We aim to reduce our impact and to create positive change on the natural world. Check out our sustainability action plan here.

Find out more about Life at GoCardless via Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.