Legal Counsel - Data, Technology & Procurement

Salary: £53,000-£63,000

Location: Cambridge/Hybrid

Contract: Full time, permanent

We are Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a world-leading academic publisher and assessment organisation and a proud part of the University of Cambridge.

We are looking for a technology and procurement lawyer, to come and help us support our global business with pragmatic, commercial legal advice.

About the role

This is an opportunity for you to join Legal & Business Affairs (L&BA), an approachable team which empowers the business to make effective and ethical choices and is enthusiastic about operational excellence to help us continually improve the way we support Cambridge.  We are a large yet close-knit team that supports each other, enjoys solving problems, and loves changing the way our colleagues think about Legal, Business Ethics and Compliance. We are seeking team members who share our passion and our values: collaborative, innovative, empowering and responsible. 

The role is a key part of the Data, Technology & Procurement team in Legal & Business Affairs, and you would get to work on new and exciting IT and procurement matters with great colleagues. It offers a varied caseload, both due to the changing nature of our business, particularly the shift from print to digital, and from products to services, and also the international reach of our work as part of a global organisation with offices in over 50 countries.  

Key responsibilities will include:  

• Co-managing the shared team in-boxes (Technology, Privacy and FOI) by assessing incoming queries, allocating matters, tracking responses and providing responsive and timely advice to the business.
• Becoming a key contact to the organisation's technology and procurement teams and helping advise on all data protection and privacy matters across the organisation.
• Advising on a wide range of contracts and templates required for the technology and procurement needs of each business division and propose/implement improvements to our contracting processes.
• Drafting and reviewing bespoke and non-standard contracts and addenda and support the negotiation of the purchase of all types of goods and services.
• Contributing to L&BA department-wide initiatives and projects and provide input to the creation and maintenance of an efficient, effective digital contracts solution and the use of our other compliance software and tools.

About you

We don't mind which university you went to or where you trained. While we give an indication in the job description of desired experience in relevant roles as a guide, we're keen to hear about different experience which would make you a strong addition to our team.

You're curious to learn (we are an education and research publishing organisation after all), and a perfect mix of self-starter and team player. You show us how you balance your ethical responsibilities with your commitment to helping colleagues – it's a fine line which we pride ourselves on being good at navigating, and we're always keen to learn from colleagues.

Along with sound legal skills, you will communicate effectively, providing expert guidance at a time and in a way that enables business colleagues to achieve their objectives. Whatever you are working on, you will be able to deliver your own initiatives and projects in a way that inspires confidence, as well as working collaboratively with others in the team and the wider organisation.

Your success will be underpinned by your ability to prioritise, with a practical and pragmatic approach, when advising on a wide variety of day-to-day matters.

Rewards and benefits

We will support you to be at your best in work and to live well outside of it. In addition to competitive salaries, we offer a world-class, flexible rewards package, featuring family-friendly and planet-friendly benefits including:

• Group personal pension scheme
• Discretionary annual bonus
• Life assurance up to 4 x annual salary
• Private medical and Permanent Health Insurance
• Green travel schemes
• 28 days annual leave plus bank holiday

We review applications on an ongoing basis, with a closing date for all application being 25 September 2022 and interviews are scheduled to take place w/c 3 October 2022.

Interviews may also take place throughout the period in which this advert is live. In the event a suitable applicant is sourced, we reserve the right to close the advert early. Please apply early to avoid any disappointment. 

Please note that successful applicants will be subject to satisfactory background checks including DBS due to working in a regulated industry.

Why Us?

Working with Cambridge will give you stability. We show our care for our people by supporting them to grow not just professionally but also personally. We promote work-life balance through flexible work schedules, hybrid work arrangements, and generous paid leave. In addition, you will be entitled to our health care benefits with coverage for dependents, group life insurance, and robust wellbeing programmes right from the first day of joining us. 

We also care about the world around us. We're a founding catalyst member of Lawyers for Net Zero, and a member of LawWorks (a UK charity working to connect volunteer lawyers with people in need of legal advice, who are not eligible for legal funding), as well as having our own Wellbeing and Green groups within the department and being key contributors to the organisation's sustainability strategy.