Business Banking Legal Counsel

Join us as a Business Banking Legal Counsel where you will work with existing members of the Barclays UK (BUK) Legal team to provide support and legal advice on all aspects of Barclays’ current and proposed product offerings in Business Banking. The successful candidate will need the ability to work independently and flexibly, across a range of products and services, in order to identify and manage risk, and to plan for change brought by developing regulation.          

Essential Skills/Basic Qualifications:

• Solicitor or barrister qualified in the UK or equivalent commonwealth jurisdiction.
• Experience of working in a law firm and/or in-house with a financial services organisation.
• Displays good communication, influencing and negotiation skills.
• Technical expertise in banking regulation and/or secured and unsecured lending, with the ability to work across a broad set of products and sensitivity to the issues presented by a retail-facing business.

Desirable skills/Preferred Qualifications:

• Regulatory technical expertise in wider financial services including experience of advising on EU regulation (for example, Consumer Credit, Data Protection).
• Consistently delivers against a broad range of competing targets.
• Identifies and escalates non-legal as well as legal risk issues.
• Experience of contributing to the creation of policies and controls.

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 will be based in Glasgow.

Purpose of the role

To ensure that the consumer banking activities are conducted in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, and to help the bank manage legal and regulatory risks associated with these activities. 

Accountabilities

• Development and implementation of best practice legal strategies for risk management and compliance.
• Proactive consumer banking Legal advice and support to the consumer banking division of the bank on a wide range of legal issues, including regulatory compliance, regulatory change management, consumer protection, and risk management.
• Representation of the bank in legal proceedings related to consumer banking, such as litigation, arbitration, and regulatory enquiry and investigations.
• Creation and periodic review of Legal documents in accordance with contractual arrangements policy to ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
• Legal research and analysis to stay up to date on changes in laws and regulations that may impact the bank's consumer banking operations.
• Developing and delivering training programmes to educate employees on legal and regulatory requirements related to consumer banking.
• 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.

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.