Head of Legal
Can be based from London OR Leicester
Bellrock Group is seeking an experienced Head of Legal to lead our inhouse legal function, providing strategic and practical legal support across the business, reporting into our Chief Financial Officer. This role requires a strong commercial lawyer who has qualified through a legal practice and has significant experience advising on customer contracts, bids, disputes and risk management.
The successful candidate will play a key role in supporting the Group's growth strategy, advising on legal and regulatory risks, counselling on commercial governance, ensuring compliance, and providing counsel on high-value and complex transactions, including public sector frameworks and M&A.
Key responsibilities:
* Act as the primary legal advisor to the business, supporting executive leadership and operational teams.
* Provide legal support on customer contracts, bids, and procurement activity, ensuring compliance with risk appetite and commercial objectives.
* Be in charge of all contract reviews, signatures and robust contracting clauses, advising on negotiation of a wide range of commercial agreements.
* Advise on PFI (Private Finance Initiative) contracts and Government Frameworks along with commercial implication of public sector procurement rules, including contract management, variations, and disputes, and compliance obligations.
* Build and maintain strong working relationships with internal stakeholders (in particular Finance, Health and Safety, Compliance, and Commercial Contracts teams), external advisors, and partners.
* Partner with Commercial and Finance teams to shape legal input into pricing strategies, commercial models, and margin optimisation.
* Support strategic decision-making by providing legal insight into commercial risks and opportunities.
* Monitor and advise on contract performance issues, including service credits, variations, and claims.
* Lead legal input into commercial governance processes, including deal reviews, bid approvals, and investment cases.
* Support the development of standardised commercial terms and playbooks to drive consistency and reduce risk.
* Establish clear legal governance processes and support ongoing compliance activities.
* Assess and manage legal and regulatory risk across the Group, developing pragmatic solutions to complex issues.
* Support corporate development activities, including M&A, due diligence, and integration.
* Define and report on legal KPIs that support commercial outcomes e.g., contract turnaround time, dispute resolution efficiency, risk mitigation success.
* Lead and develop any legal team resource as the function grows, and own the relationships with external counsel.
* Liaise with PE shareholder counsel on strategic legal issues.
Skills & experience:
* UK qualified solicitor, trained in private practice, with strong post qualification experience (7-10 years PQE).
* Broad commercial and corporate law experience ideally gained inhouse within a complex, multi-stakeholder PE-backed business.
* Proven expertise in PFI contracts, Government Frameworks, and large-scale customer contracts.
* Experience advising on bids, tenders, and contractual risk allocation.
* M&A exposure is desirable.
* Trusted advisor with strong business acumen be the legal expert and commercially partner the business, with the appropriate balance of technical expertise and solutioning
* Excellent negotiation and communication skills able to influence at all levels
* Strategic thinker capable of seeing the bigger picture and aligning legal advice with long-term business goals.
* Resilient and composed under pressure able to manage complex negotiations, disputes, and competing priorities without losing focus but maintaining pace in the PE environment.
* Detail oriented but pragmatic able to spot risks, but also find workable solutions that enable progress.
* Ethical and principled ensures integrity and compliance while supporting commercial outcomes.
* Drive and pace ability to flourish in a high pressured PE environment, and relish working with an ambitious leadership team
Working arrangements
We embrace smarter working practices which offer our employees the opportunity to work their hours flexibly and remotely where their roles and business needs allow. In this role, the successful candidate would be required to work from the London OR Leicester office (not both) on a hybrid basis - 8:30am to 5:00pm with an hour for lunch.
What can we offer you?
Upon joining Bellrock, you can expect a comprehensive benefits package including:
25 days annual leave plus bank holidays + 1 additional day as a thank you (enjoy it, it's on us)
Salary exchange pension scheme
Life cover
Paid sick leave
Health Assured employee assistance and wellness program
Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption leave
Salary sacrifice schemes: Cycle to work
Holiday purchase scheme of additional 5 days per year
Offers and discount scheme designed to save money on everyday shopping and essentials
Healthcare Cashplan
MotorSave Scheme
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Virtual GP
Why Bellrock?
Our people are our passion, so we're all about helping them to achieve their ambitions. That means putting everything in place for you to have a rewarding career with us. So you can go far in your career, with us behind you. And our business will grow, too. So, if you're ready to start your career journey with Bellrock we're ready to welcome you. It's a great place to be.
We would like to attract talent from all corners of the world for this role. Or commitment is to an equitable recruitment process so feel free to apply in any way that suits you. We are looking for the right person, not necessarily just the right person for this role
Apply today.