Debt Advisory Lawyer (AVP)

As a Debt Advisory Lawyer (AVP) you will sit within the Debt Advisory Legal team, which is part of the wider Corporate Banking Legal team. The team is responsible for legal advice and legal risk management, acting as trusted advisors supporting business areas providing unregulated, primarily templated, lending across UK Corporate Bank and International Corporate Banking.

You will work in a friendly and passionate team of loans experts. You will be a debt legal expert with a proven track record of using these skills in an advisory capacity to oversee key product and proposition innovation and simplification both within debt but across non-debt products.

Experience of advising on lending is preferred. You will use this experience to proactively identify new and emerging legal and regulatory risks by providing consistently excellent advice and guidance that is supported by clear rationale and justification.

Basic/Preferred Criteria:

• You must be a UK Qualified Lawyer / completed a law degree
• Experience in Financial Services (supporting on transactions / project management / general advisory)
• Excellent communication and stakeholder skills as you would be dealing with various stakeholders within Legal and other areas of the bank.
• Excellent prioritisation and multitasking skills; you are able to efficiently manage a busy inbox and handling multiple queries simultaneously.

You may be assessed on key critical skills relevant for success in role, such as risk and controls, change and transformation, business acumen, strategic thinking and digital and technology, as well as job-specific technical skills.

This role is based in Birmingham. .

Purpose of the role

To ensure that the activities of the corporate banking division related to the role’s relevant product set are conducted in compliance with applicable laws, rules and regulations, and to help the bank manage legal and reputational risks associated with these activities. 

Accountabilities

• Development and implementation of best practice legal strategies related to the role’s relevant product set, to manage risk related to non-adherence to laws, rules and regulations.
• Subject matter legal advice and support to the Bank's corporate and investment banking divisions globally on a wide range of transactions and projects across trade and working capital finance, cash management, real estate finance, project finance, asset backed finance, lending and other corporate loan finance.
• Subject matter legal advice and support to the Bank’s businesses and infrastructure functions, including areas such as credit, compliance, risk, product management, tax, finance, fraud, transaction management, structuring and execution, litigation, commercial contract support, and operations, often in close collaboration with other legal teams across departments and jurisdictions.
• Subject matter support in the Legal department’s representation of the bank in legal proceedings related to the role’s relevant product set, such as litigation, arbitration, and regulatory investigations.
• Creation and/or review of legal documents for the relevant product set to ensure the bank’s adherence with applicable laws, rules and regulations. Maintaining and updating legal documentation related to the role’s related product set for the corporate banking division.
• Development and delivery of training programmes to educate employees on legal and regulatory requirements related to the role’s relevant product set.
• Pro-active identification, communication, and provision of legal advice on applicable laws, rules and regulations (LRRs). Keeping up to date with regards to changes to LRRs in the relevant coverage area. Ensuring that LRRs are effectively allocated to, and adequately reflected within, the relevant policies, standards and controls.

Assistant Vice President Expectations

• To contribute or set strategy, drive requirements and make recommendations for change. Plan resources, budgets, and policies; manage and maintain policies/ processes; deliver continuous improvements and escalate breaches of policies/procedures..
• If managing a team, they define jobs and responsibilities, planning for the department’s future needs and operations, counselling employees on performance and contributing to employee pay decisions/changes. They may also lead a number of specialists to influence the operations of a department, in alignment with strategic as well as tactical priorities, while balancing short and long term goals and ensuring that budgets and schedules meet corporate requirements..
• If the position has leadership responsibilities, People Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others..
• OR for an individual contributor, they will be a subject matter expert within own discipline and will guide technical direction. They will lead collaborative, multi-year assignments and guide team members through structured assignments, identify the need for the inclusion of other areas of specialisation to complete assignments. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions..
• Advise key stakeholders, including functional leadership teams and senior management on functional and cross functional areas of impact and alignment.
• Manage and mitigate risks through assessment, in support of the control and governance agenda.
• Demonstrate leadership and accountability for managing risk and strengthening controls in relation to the work your team does.
• Demonstrate comprehensive understanding of the organisation functions to contribute to achieving the goals of the business.
• Collaborate with other areas of work, for business aligned support areas to keep up to speed with business activity and the business strategies.
• Create solutions based on sophisticated analytical thought comparing and selecting complex alternatives. In-depth analysis with interpretative thinking will be required to define problems and develop innovative solutions.
• Adopt and include the outcomes of extensive research in problem solving processes.
• Seek out, build and maintain trusting relationships and partnerships with internal and external stakeholders in order to accomplish key business objectives, using influencing and negotiating skills to achieve outcomes.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.