Lawyer - Group Property Legal

A bit about the team:

The Group Property Legal team sits within the Group Operations & Commercial Legal team, in Group Legal, to support the strategic review of  both the branch network and office estate, as well as wider Lloyds Banking Group (“the Group”) strategic projects with a real estate element.

This Lawyer role will report directly into the Senior Property Lawyer within Group Property Legal. Together, the team delivers legal support across the Group working alongside the Asset Management and Future Workplace teams in the People & Place function as well as the Group’s external property advisers. The work is varied, fast paced and will provide outstanding insight into the operations, technology and strategy of the Group!  This role is for a qualified commercial real estate lawyer who is comfortable to provide property legal advice and transactional support directly to internal stakeholders as well as oversee and help manage the provision of property legal services by external law firms.

This is a particularly exciting time to be involved with the Group’s property estate, given the significant changes which the Group’s portfolio is going through to meet the changes in the way financial services are delivered. On top of this there is the opportunity to be involved and support the Bank’s aim to be net zero by 2030 through the transformation of its properties.

What we need from you:

• Management and oversight of external panel law firms mainly in the UK, but also in the other jurisdictions that the Group operates in.
• Involvement in strategic projects impacting the Group’s estate including property acquisitions, disposals and the negotiation of commercial leases as well as issues arising from dilapidation claims or contentious property matters.
• Stakeholder management; being a trusted adviser to the Group’s Asset Management team and their external business partners (including asset managers, facilities managers and construction consultants) and working with other legal teams and SME’s within the Group.
• Legal and regulatory horizon scanning.
• Legal risk management.
• Budgetary control and responsibility for the effective selection and management of external legal counsel.

Is this role for you?

Essential:

• Applicants must be a fully qualified lawyer with a current practising certificate for a UK jurisdiction or equivalent legal qualification. Due to the UK wide estate, if you are qualified in Scotland, you must also be dual qualified in England & Wales.
• Experience in commercial real estate, particularly a strong and confirmed knowledge of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 and negotiating commercial leases.
• Your experience should have been gained in private practice or an established in-house team.
• Be comfortable working independently and with minimal direction in a small team.
• Strong commercial awareness together with a customer-focussed approach.
• Excellent influencing and communication skills together with a pro-active approach as you’ll be required to interact with executives, deliver messages in a cohesive and simple way and build your internal network with senior leaders.

Desirable:

• Experience working in or for a financial services institution.
• Understanding of an outsourced model for legal work.

We also offer a wide-ranging benefits package, which includes:

• A generous pension contribution of up to 15%
• A discretionary annual performance-related bonus
• Share schemes including free shares
• Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping
• 30 days’ holiday, with bank holidays on top
• A range of wellbeing initiatives and generous parental leave policies

We're dedicated to giving you opportunities and support to develop you to optimise your potential. This role provides the opportunity to develop numerous transferable skills including negotiation skills, commerciality and problem solving.  It’s the chance to join a brilliant legal team at an exciting time for the Group!

As a new colleague, you’ll join us on our journey to build a 21st century bank that reflects modern Britain, and craft an inclusive culture where all colleagues feel encouraged and valued.

We're committed to building a workforce which reflects the diversity of the customers and communities we serve, and to building an inclusive environment where all our colleagues can be themselves and succeed on merit. We support the principles of agile working and are happy to consider flexible working arrangements. We're an equal opportunity employer and deeply value diversity within our organisation. Together we make it possible.

Our continued commitment to helping Britain prosper means that as a colleague you can make a difference to customers, businesses and communities.

Together we have a key role to play in shaping the bank of the future, whilst the scale and reach of our Group means you'll continue to have opportunities to learn, grow and develop.

We're focused on creating a values-led culture, and our approach to inclusion and diversity means that we all have the opportunity to make a real difference, together.

As part of the Group's commitments as a result of ring-fencing legislation, colleagues based in the Crown Dependencies are required to be exclusively dedicated to the non-ring-fenced bank and its subsidiaries. This means that colleagues who are based in the Crown Dependencies would not be able to undertake roles for the Ring Fenced Bank from their existing location and would need to consider relocation when applying for roles.