Assistant General Counsel

Job Title: Assistant General Counsel- English
Salary: £130,000-£175,000 per annum
Location: Cambridge, Hybrid
Contract: Full time, part time/job shares, permanent
We are Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a world-leading academic publisher and learning and assessment organisation, and a proud part of the University of Cambridge.
We are looking for an Assistant General Counsel for our English group, to lead our legal support for this significant part of our global business with strategic and pragmatic advice.
This is an opportunity for you to join Legal & Business Affairs, an approachable team which empowers the business to make effective and ethical choices. Our enthusiasm for operational excellence helps 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.
Why would you join us?
Our mission is to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. Which is why every year, we give vital support to millions of people in more than 170 countries around the world. From teachers and learners to researchers and academics, we help to build confidence, unlock potential, and enable success.
The key to our work is our colleagues, whose shared commitment enables us to have an ever-greater impact. We are a united, vibrant, and respectful global community of people, and we ensure that every individual is recognised, listened to, and cared for. And because our impact is amplified when our people are empowered, we give everyone the opportunity to develop in their own way. Whether you want a career that is linear, or want to follow your own path, we'll support you, and help give you the resources and training you will need to be bold and take ownership of what you do.
We are particularly focused on inclusion and improving diversity at all levels in the organisation, including for this role. We know that diversity of thinking, backgrounds and approaches leads to innovation and creates an atmosphere where everyone's contribution is valued.
What can we offer you?
The role is a key part of the senior team in Legal & Business Affairs, and you would get to lead on complex and exciting legal matters supported by 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.
On top of this, working with Cambridge will also 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 General Counsel Sustainability Forum, 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.
What will you do in this role?
In this role, you will report to the General Counsel, acting as the primary legal counsel to the English product group and sitting on its board. In that capacity you will provide strategic legal advice and guidance to board members, members of the Global Leadership Team and others on highly complex, high-risk legal matters. You will have a specific focus on overseas markets, and have supervisory responsibility over the relevant lawyers and other team members. As an active member of the L&BA senior team, you will assist in formulating the function's strategy, articulating its culture and mission and developing and managing its talent.
Who are 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.
Location
We like getting together in the office, and we also support hybrid working. The split of time between home and office will be a decision based on your and the team's needs, rather than rigid requirements, though we're generally aiming for an average of at least 2 days a week in the office. We'll give you the tools you need to do your job wherever that may be.
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:
28 days annual leave plus bank holidays
Private medical and Permanent Health Insurance
Discretionary annual bonus
Group personal pension scheme
Life assurance up to 4 x annual salary
Green travel schemes
Ready to pursue your potential? Apply now.
We review applications on an ongoing basis, with a closing date for all applications being 5th May 2024 and interviews are scheduled to take place w/c 13th May 2024.
We may carry out interviews on a rolling basis. In the event we source a suitable applicant early, we reserve the right to close the advert early.
Why join us
Joining us is your opportunity to pursue potential. You'll belong to a collaborative team that's exploring new and better ways to serve students, teachers and researchers across the globe – for the benefit of individuals, society and the world. Sharing our mission will inspire your own growth, development and progress, in an environment which embraces difference, change and aspiration.
Cambridge University Press & Assessment is committed to being a place where anyone can enjoy a successful career, where it's safe to speak up, and where we learn continuously to improve together. We welcome applications from all candidates, regardless of demographic characteristics (age, disability, educational attainment, ethnicity, gender, marital status, neurodiversity, religion, sex, gender identity and sexual identity), cultural, or social class/background.
We believe better outcomes come through diversity of thought, background and approach. We welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and communities, actively seeking to employ people from a wide range of different communities.
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