Legal Counsel - Commercial

To provide high-quality, commercially focused and pragmatic legal advice across the Group's commercial activities, supporting the negotiation, drafting and management of a broad range of commercial arrangements, including supplier contracts, outsourcing and technology arrangements, together with legal support for data-related matters, custody and dealing arrangements, investment manager and discretionary fund manager relationships, and distribution arrangements. The role is particularly suited to a lawyer with experience of financial services outsourcing arrangements and/or investment services, including custody and dealing.
The role will support a broad range of stakeholders across the business on business-as-usual matters, strategic initiatives, proposition development and regulatory change projects. The successful candidate will be expected to operate with a high degree of autonomy, managing matters from instruction through to completion, building strong stakeholder relationships and collaborating effectively with colleagues across Legal and the wider business to deliver practical, risk-based solutions.
Key Accountabilities and Responsibilities:

General Commercial and outsourcing
· Act as a key Legal contact for commercial matters across the Group, developing trusted stakeholder relationships and providing practical, risk-based legal advice.
· Draft, review, negotiate and advise on a wide range of commercial agreements, including supplier contracts, regulatory outsourcing arrangements, software and technology agreements, intragroup agreements, consultancy agreements and data-related arrangements.
· Support the Group's vendor management and outsourcing activities, ensuring third-party arrangements are appropriately structured, documented and governed, and reflect applicable legal, regulatory and operational requirements, as well as the Group's risk appetite.
· Advise stakeholders on contractual risk, governance requirements, operational resilience considerations and legal obligations arising from supplier relationships.
· Instruct and manage external legal advisers where specialist support is required.
· Monitor relevant legal, regulatory and market developments and provide timely updates and practical guidance to stakeholders.
· Support the development and maintenance of commercial contract templates, playbooks, guidance notes and precedent documentation.
· Assist with strategic projects, business change initiatives, procurement exercises and corporate activity as required.
Platform, Investment and Distribution Arrangements
· Support legal work relating to our investment platforms, including custody, dealing, settlement and distribution arrangements.
· Draft and negotiate agreements with discretionary fund managers, investment managers, fund groups, custodians and other financial services counterparties.
· Assist with product launches, proposition enhancements and strategic commercial initiatives.
General Business Advisory
· Support stakeholders across the Group by providing commercially focused and pragmatic legal advice on business-as-usual matters, strategic initiatives and proposition development activities.
· Assist with business change projects and other strategic initiatives, identifying legal and regulatory risks and helping stakeholders deliver practical, risk-based solutions.

Key Competencies:
· Strong commercial contracting skills, including drafting, negotiation and risk assessment.
· Sound legal judgement and ability to balance legal risk against commercial and operational objectives.
· Ability to manage a varied workload independently and prioritise competing demands effectively.
· Excellent stakeholder management skills and ability to build trusted relationships across the business.
· Strong negotiation and influencing skills.
· Clear and practical communication style, with the ability to explain complex legal issues to non-lawyers.
· Commercial awareness and understanding of the role of Legal in supporting business objectives.
· Strong attention to detail while maintaining a pragmatic and solutions-focused approach.
· Collaborative working style and willingness to support colleagues across Legal and the wider business.
· Continuous improvement mindset, including an interest in improving legal processes, documents and ways of working.

Knowledge and Experience:
· Solicitor qualified to practise in England & Wales or Scotland with approximately 5+ years' PQE or equivalent experience.
· Strong experience drafting, reviewing and negotiating commercial contracts.
· Experience advising on supplier, outsourcing, technology and services agreements.
· Experience of data protection matters within a commercial contracting environment.
· Experience gained in-house and/or within financial services, fintech or another regulated environment, in particular in material outsourcing arrangements, would be advantageous but is not essential.
· Experience negotiating investment management, custody and dealing arrangements would be beneficial but is not essential.
· Experience supporting strategic projects, business change activities and stakeholder decision-making.
· Experience maintaining precedents, templates, playbooks or guidance documentation.
· Strong organisational skills and ability to manage multiple matters simultaneously.
· Good working knowledge of Microsoft Office and other business systems used to manage legal workload and documentation.

Values and Behaviours:
· Positively demonstrate the Nucleus values and behaviours, acting with integrity and supporting a culture that is open, inclusive, collaborative and accountable.
· Provide clear, pragmatic and business-focused legal advice that helps stakeholders make informed decisions.
· Build trusted relationships across the business by being approachable, responsive and solutions focused.
· Take ownership of matters, follow through on actions and escalate clearly where required.
· Support continuous improvement by identifying opportunities to simplify processes, improve documentation and strengthen ways of working.
· Work collaboratively across Legal and the wider business, contributing to team resilience, knowledge sharing and shared success.

A little about us  
We’re the Nucleus Financial Platforms group and we help make retirement more rewarding.  
People come first - whether it’s our colleagues, or the advisers and customers we support, we know that working in partnership and collaboration leads to the best outcomes. Together, we’ve shaped the platform to how it is today. We work hard, and we celebrate hard too.  
Our ambition is to create a platform with a difference, putting the customer centre stage meant tearing up the rule book and starting from scratch. We’ve come a long way since then, but our mission remains just as focused. That’s why our culture, values, and social responsibility are things we keep at the top of our agenda – because we know they matter and have a big impact.  
Our culture is one of the many things that sets us apart from the pack. We want to have an environment where our people feel that they can make a real difference, know they’ll be rewarded for their efforts and more importantly, enjoy themselves at work.  
Are we a perfect match? Check out this video and find out!  
Inclusion and diversity at Nucleus  
As with most things in life, who cares, wins. We really care about inclusion.  
For us it’s not a tick box exercise; inclusion and diversity are embedded in our culture and everything we do. It’s a commercial imperative. It isn’t about being PC. It’s about being future-relevant and durable. We owe it to ourselves and the industry to ensure we are playing our part in creating a fair, balanced and transparent financial services sector.  
More diversity means broader experience, a wider set of perspectives and a better collective ability to problem-solve. And it means being more representative of customer groups, which supports areas such as product development.  
At Nucleus, we offer a generous blend of benefits for the things that really matter to our people, including a non-contributory pension, bonus, enhanced parental leave, paid time off for emergencies, health and wellbeing initiatives and flexible working options.  
If you’d like to find out more about us or the role, get in touch with Hannah in our People team.