Manager / Senior Manager – Legal

About the role

You will lead delivery of legal managed services for US, UK and global clients, owning the quality of complex contracting work and the team that produces it. You will be the senior legal voice with client legal teams.

Alongside core legal work, you will advise clients on how legal technology and AI can improve their contracting and legal operations, and help implement those solutions using deep domain knowledge.

Key responsibilities

Legal delivery

• Complex contracting: draft, review and negotiate high-complexity agreements, such as MSAs, licensing, outsourcing, SaaS, data-processing and industry-specific contracts, with minimal supervision.
• Escalations and advice: act as the final escalation point on legal risk, deviations from playbooks and non-standard positions, and advise clients on risk mitigation.
• Quality and governance: own SLAs, KPIs and quality frameworks; run reviews, audits and service reporting with clients.

Client management

• Serve as the main point of contact for in-house legal teams of US, UK and global clients; lead governance calls and quarterly business reviews.
• Build and maintain client playbooks, templates, clause libraries and fallback positions.
• Identify opportunities to expand services and support proposals, solutioning and client pitches.

Team leadership

• Lead, mentor and review the work of a team of Senior Legal Associates and Legal Associates.
• Manage resourcing, workload allocation, training, performance reviews and hiring.

Legal tech and AI advisory

• Advise clients on legal tech and AI options for contracting and legal operations, including CLM, AI-assisted review and agentic workflows.
• Support implementation as the domain lead: design playbooks for AI tools, define requirements, validate AI output, run UAT and drive user adoption.
• Identify automation opportunities within the delivery model and measure the efficiency gains.

Requirements

Required qualifications

• LLB / LLM from a recognised university.
• 7+ years in commercial / contract law with a law firm, in-house legal team, ALSP / LPO, or Big Four legal practice.
• Proven ability to independently draft, review and negotiate high-complexity contracts for US / UK and global counterparties.
• Experience working directly with US, UK or global clients, including familiarity with common-law contracting practice.
• At least 3 years of team management, including reviewing work and developing junior lawyers.
• Working understanding of legal tech and AI (CLM platforms, AI review tools, GenAI) and experience supporting at least one implementation.
• Excellent written and spoken English, client-facing presence and stakeholder management.

Preferred: industry experience

Experience in one or more of these industries will be an added advantage.

• Pharma / life sciences: Clinical trial agreements, CDAs, CRO and site agreements, licensing and co-development, supply and manufacturing, pharmacovigilance and data-protection terms
• Insurance: TPA and outsourcing agreements, claims and regulatory documentation
• Banking and financial services: ISDA / CSA, facility and security documents, vendor and outsourcing agreements under FCA / PRA / RBI rules, KYC and onboarding documentation

Preferred skills and tools

• CLM and AI tools: Icertis, Ironclad, Agiloft, Leah, Luminance, Harvey, Microsoft Copilot.
• Experience setting up or scaling a managed services delivery centre or transitioning work from a client.
• Knowledge of data protection (UK GDPR, EU GDPR, India DPDP Act 2023) and AI regulation (EU AI Act).