Office of General Counsel Business Partner - Senior Manager

Job description / Role

Line of Service
Internal Firm Services

Specialism
IFS - Office of General Counsel (OGC)

Management Level
Senior Manager

Job Description & Summary
A career in Office of General Counsel, within Internal Firm Services, will provide you with the opportunity to be a part of the Firm's legal department by providing dedicated legal support in the areas of litigation, counselling, and corporate, commercial, and employment law. You'll play an important part in all aspects of regulatory proceedings involving the Firm and its personnel by supporting on regulatory issues, advising the Firm on matters relating to its operations, supporting the Firm's client contracting function, and advising on matters related to employees.

As part of our team, you'll help with researching background information related to legal issues and prepare legal documents. You'll focus on drafting contracts or legal agreements, retaining files of prepared legal documents, and coordinating requests between internal and external counsel.

The ME Office of the General Counsel (OGC) Team operates across all lines of service and across the region. The objective of the OGC Team is to provide legal advice and support on a day to day basis, to client facing Partners and teams and assist the business to make appropriate risk decisions while protecting the Firm.

There are dedicated subject matter experts in each of the sub functions within the OGC team who are available to support and consult with Partner and engagement teams on all legal, structural and dispute related queries.

The role of the Business Partner is to act as the front line for the business. The Business Partner is responsible for providing a smooth, efficient and effective service to the client facing teams in relation to their area of expertise and acting as a sign post to direct teams to the appropriate business partners for other specialist support.

The Business Partner at this level must operate with a pragmatic mindset and be solution oriented. Demonstrating an ability to balance risks identified with maintaining a commercial outlook in their approach to answering queries. The role is more than just following policy or processes and includes being flexible in applying business judgement, understanding of the business, its operations, products and services. The Business Partner should have deep relationships with Partners and other senior engagement team members within the business.

Responsibilities

- Provide advice and support in relation to all regulatory matters (including data protection and data privacy)
- Be the point of contact for all legal queries from the Line of Service (LoS) and / or Specialism allocated to (more senior Business Partner roles will have more responsibilities)
- Provide specialist advice and support in relation to the LoS / Specialism allocated to
- Provide advice and support to engagement teams and LoS R&Q teams on all legal related areas of risk during an engagement lifecycle, with particular focus on managing risk during client and engagement acceptance
- Liaise with other R&Q Business Partners such as Independence, Compliance etc for specialist advice
- Provide advice on client and third party contracting including negotiating directly with these parties on the relevant terms and conditions
- Build relationships with the relevant LoS R&Q Leader, other R&Q Leaders, and LoS / IFS Partners and engagement teams as relevant to become the 'trusted advisor' for them on all legal matters
- Meet regularly with the allocated LoS R&Q / IFS Leader to discuss key findings, areas of concerns and / or gather feedback
- Consult and escalate to the LoS R&Q Leader / OGC Team Lead as necessary

Requirements

Education

- A professional or academic qualification (degree level or equivalent), or extensive relevant and practical experience
- Qualified lawyer

Language

- Fluency in English required, proficiency in Arabic is advantageous

Overall Experience

- 8+ years of relevant experience with 4+ years in a legal role

Specific Experience

- Client facing experience in the Professional Services industry in a top tier Big 4 firm (or equivalent) required
- Prior people management and teamwork experience

Knowledge and Skills

- Deep understanding of the legal environment across the region
- Deep legal, regulatory and/ or litigation knowledge
- Strong problem solving skills
- Strong project management skills
- Strong networking and capacity to build strong connections with Global, EMEA, external legal counsels, UK and other R&Q LoS communities
- Strong decision making skills
- Strong people management skills
- Risk averse/risk management skills
- Process oriented and strong internal control skills
- Ability to develop and implement procedures, controls and policies for functional areas of responsibility
- Organisation skills
- Thoroughness and eye for detail
- Time management skills and proactivity
- Strong verbal and written communication skills
- Ethical conduct

About the Company

At PwC Middle East, we've set out an ambitious purpose and strive to live it everyday: to solve important problems and build trust in society.

We're a community of solvers that come together in unexpected ways to build trust and create sustained outcomes. We solve important problems, support one another as we grow, develop and build fulfilling careers.

PwC provides industry-focused services for public and private clients across Assurance and Audit, Deals, Consulting, Tax and Legal. We draw on our development legacy that brings together the collective experience of over 7,000 people in our region with offices across 12 countries to solve for tomorrow.

We're striving to consistently deliver innovative work that builds trust and delivers sustained outcomes. And we're proud of the strength that comes from all our different backgrounds and experiences and we value everyone's uniqueness. We thrive in uncertainty, operate with integrity and leverage the diverse perspectives of our teams.

If you're looking for a place that fuels your ambition to make a difference, that matches your curiosity with continuous learning opportunities and reimagines ways of working to enable you to lead a more balanced life, then you're a future PwCer.