Job Title: Senior Legal Counsel – International Education (IE)

Contract: Full time, permanent but open to considering part-time

Salary: £78,100 - £113,300 [depending on level of experience]

Location: Cambridge/Hybrid minimum 2 days a week in the office

We are Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a world-leading academic publisher and learning and assessment organisation, and a proud part of the University of Cambridge. 

We are looking for an experienced commercial lawyer to come and help us support our global International Education business with pragmatic, commercial legal advice.

This is an opportunity for you to join Legal & Business Affairs (L&BA), an approachable team which empowers the business to make effective and ethical choices and is enthusiastic about operational excellence to help us continually improve the way we support Cambridge.  We are a large yet close-knit team that supports each other, enjoys solving problems, and loves changing the way our colleagues think about Legal, Business Ethics and Compliance. We are seeking team members who share our passion and our values: collaborative, innovative, empowering and responsible. 

Why would you join us?

Our mission is to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. Which is why every year, we give vital support to millions of people in more than 170 countries around the world. From teachers and learners to researchers and academics, we help to build confidence, unlock potential, and enable success.  

We give people the opportunity to show what they've learnt, we spread knowledge, spark enquiry, and aid understanding.  

We achieve this by embracing change, and continuously focusing on our customers' needs. And by collaborating, and carefully listening to our customers and to each other, we keep moving forward, keep innovating, and keep finding newer and better ways of doing things.  

The key to our work is our colleagues, whose shared commitment enables us to have an ever-greater impact. We are a united, vibrant, and respectful global community of people, and we ensure that every individual is recognised, listened to, and cared for. And because our impact is amplified when our people are empowered, we give everyone the opportunity to develop in their own way. Whether you want a career that is linear, or want to follow your own path, we'll support you, and help give you the resources and training you will need to be bold and take ownership of what you do.  

We are particularly focused on inclusion and improving diversity at all levels in the organisation, including for this role. We know that diversity of thinking, backgrounds and approaches leads to innovation and creates an atmosphere where everyone's contribution is valued.

What can we offer you?

The role is a key part of the International Education legal team in Legal & Business Affairs, providing support to the global International Education product group on a wide range of matters. You would get to work on a broad range of matters, both contractual and advisory and contentious and non-contentious, with great colleagues. No day in the International Education legal team is the same and the role offers a really varied caseload due to the changing nature of our business, the variety of the products and  services that fall  within the International Education product group  - including the delivery of high-stakes examinations, international publishing, and advice to governments on education reform - and the international reach of our work (we provide services to over 10,000 schools worldwide in over 160 countries in 9 regions) as part of a global organisation with offices in over 50 countries.  

On top of this, working with Cambridge will also give you stability. We show our care for our people by supporting them to grow not just professionally but also personally. We promote work-life balance through flexible work schedules, hybrid work arrangements, and generous paid leave. In addition, you will be entitled to our health care benefits with coverage for dependents, group life insurance, and robust wellbeing programmes right from the first day of joining us. 

We also care about the world around us. We're a founding catalyst member of General Counsel Sustainability Forum, and a member of LawWorks (a UK charity working to connect volunteer lawyers with people in need of legal advice, who are not eligible for legal funding), as well as supporting social mobility initiatives promoting wider access to our professions. We have our own Wellbeing and Green groups within the department and are key contributors to the organisation's sustainability strategy.

What will you do in this role?

In this role, you will report to the Assistant General Counsel – International Education. You will provide legal advice and support to colleagues in our International Education product group around the world as well as to colleagues in other shared services teams, including Finance and Tax.

You will act as a key business partner and advise on complex and larger matters, working independently, representing the Assistant General Counsel where required, and helping to supervise the work of more junior members of the team. You will be expected to develop strong working relationships across International Education and with the shared functions and wider business. In particular, we have a growing need for advice for our US business, our digitisation agenda, and on the customer and learner aspects of our data privacy compliance.

Key accountabilities, essential knowledge and skills are outline in the attached Job Description.

Who are you?

We don't mind which university you went to or where you trained. While we give an indication in the job description of desired experience in relevant roles as a guide, we're keen to hear about different experience which would make you a strong addition to our team. We are seeking a lawyer who is English law qualified or, preferably,  US qualified. We will also consider candidates who are qualified in a Commonwealth jurisdiction, such as Australia or Canada. We would particularly like to hear from you if you have experience of advising on technology and digital products/projects, and/or data privacy, including FERPA.

You're curious to learn (we are an education and research publishing organisation after all), and a perfect mix of self-starter and team player. You show us how you balance your ethical responsibilities with your commitment to helping colleagues – it's a fine line which we pride ourselves on being good at navigating, and we're always keen to learn from colleagues.

Along with sound legal skills, you will communicate effectively, providing expert guidance at a time and in a way that enables business colleagues to achieve their objectives. Whatever you are working on, you will be able to deliver your own initiatives and projects in a way that inspires confidence, as well as working collaboratively with others in the team and the wider organisation.

Your success will be underpinned by your ability to prioritise, with a practical and pragmatic approach, when advising on a wide variety of day-to-day matters.

Location

We like getting together in the office but we also support hybrid working. Being in the office will be a decision based on your and the team's needs, rather than rigid requirements, but our general expectation is two days a week in the office, of which one is a team “anchor day”.  We'll give you the tools you need to do your job wherever that may be.

For further detail on the role, please see the attached Job Description and, if you are interested in applying, please complete the attached form.