Senior Lawyer – Consumer Finance & Transport (CFT) Legal Team (12-month FTC)

JOB TITLE: Senior Lawyer – Consumer Finance & Transport (CFT) Legal Team (12-month FTC)

SALARY: £111,809 - £131,540

LOCATION(S): Chester, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Halifax, Leeds

HOURS: Full time

WORKING PATTERN: Our work style is hybrid, which involves spending at least two days per week, or 40% of our time, at one of our office sites.

About this opportunity

The Cards, Loans, Embedded Finance and Transport businesses sit in the Consumer Lending division now led by Jayne Opperman. The fundamental nature of those businesses are to offer lending and financing for consumers and vehicle leasing to businesses in the UK.

We’re on an exciting journey to transform our Group and the way we’re crafting finance for good. We’re focusing on the future, investing in our technologies, workplaces, and colleagues to make our Group a phenomenal place for everyone. Including you.

Our vision within CFT Legal is to “Protect, Influence, Empower”. We align with the aims of the business we support in demonstrating the Group’s capabilities to deepen customer relationships and redefine ways of working to deliver a leading customer experience. We're specialists in identifying and guiding on legal risk, but we go further and make valuable contributions with our commercial insight, whilst ensuring customers receive fair and consistent treatments.

Through the Transport division (Black Horse, Lex Autolease and Tusker) we offer vehicle finance and leasing facilities for both personal and business customers.

Black Horse is the leading independent provider of non-captive motor finance. Providing point-of-sale finance to over 900,000 end customers supporting them to purchase their vehicle of choice through 4,700 dealerships.

Lex Autolease is the UK's largest vehicle leasing and fleet management provider supporting 140,000 business and consumer customers, from sole traders to large multi-nationals. It has a fleet size of over 350,000 vehicles, including cars, vans, mini-buses and emergency vehicles.

Tusker joined the Transport “family” in February 2023 since that time the size of the fleet has grown 148% and now has 60,000 vehicles as part of its fleet.

Day to day you’ll:

• Provide insightful, commercial advice, and legal expertise to senior business and support partners, and facilitate the delivery of excellent outcomes for customers across the Transport division.

• Use your technical expertise to provide specialised training or mentoring to others.

• Be encouraged to work collectively with lawyers across the Legal community to provide joined up legal support in the areas of litigation, contentious regulatory, competition, data protection and commercial contracts issues relevant to the businesses we support.

• Be encouraged to provide advice on the following:

  • drafting and negotiation of commercial contracts including: outsourcing agreements, supplier agreements, customer terms and conditions, bespoke customer contracts, manufacturer contracts, novations and standard form templates

  • reviewing and advising on data flows, data protection, data sharing agreements and cyber incidents

  • new product offerings

  • customer communications

  • tenders, requests for information and proposals

  • customer issues, queries, contracts and disputes

  • customers in financial difficulty/insolvency

  • rectifications & remediations

  • the new consumer duty standard

  • digital journeys

  • legal developments (statutory or otherwise)

In addition, you’ll:

• Ensure risks are addressed and appropriately raised, reported, escalated and shared.

• Ensure training needs of the businesses are met.

• Assist in any dealings with the FCA, PRA and other regulatory or trade bodies. This may involve helping to craft external thinking on the reform of consumer credit and consumer protection legislation.

• Work with external legal firms to support the business.

• Work in partnership with other Group, Divisional and Business Divisions - in particular Digital Engagement, Finance, Risk, CCOR and Operations

• Help to deliver the engagement model between Legal and our customers

• Initiate, lead and participate in Legal and Secretariat community projects

For this role your focus will be twofold (1) supporting Black Horse products from maintaining relationships with manufacturers to the onboarding of dealers and finally, all aspects of the customer journey for regulated hire purchase and PCP agreements (2) on leasing and issues affecting the Lex Autolease business including customers, suppliers and manufacturers. Part of that may include being the point of contact and building strong partner relationships with the senior leadership team.

About us

We’re on an exciting journey to transform our Group and the way we’re shaping finance for good. We’re focusing on the future, investing in our technologies, workplaces, and colleagues to make our Group a great place for everyone. Including you.

What you’ll need:

• A qualified solicitor in the UK or equivalent, with significant post qualification experience.

• Sound legal, commercial and risk judgement and understand and build an effective Legal risk management framework.

• Knowledge of consumer credit law, general consumer law as well as applying FCA Principles, FCA rules (e.g. CONC), Payment Services Regulations, and other requirements applying to the products we support (unsecured credit, hire and hire purchase).

• Equally important for the role is knowledge and experience in asset finance, drafting and negotiating commercial contracts and advising and documenting data protection matters / issues.

• Ability to build effective working partnerships and consensus, applying positive relationship management and interpersonal skills.

• Ability to work effectively with senior management and executives across a variety of functions, not only to ensure compliance with legal requirements but also to proactively challenge, advise and influence senior management on legal issues.

• Thrive on challenge and be able to balance multiple competing demands through uncertainty or ambiguity.

• Can positively influence others by role modelling core LBG values and behaviours.

We'll be looking for you to focus on growing your own capabilities and investing in personal development by identifying and using the many opportunities within the team.

About working for us

Our ambition is to be the leading UK business for diversity, equity and inclusion supporting our customers, colleagues and communities, and we’re committed to creating an environment in which everyone can thrive, learn and develop.

We were one of the first major organisations to set goals on diversity in senior roles, create a menopause health package, and a dedicated Working with Cancer Initiative.

We offer reasonable workplace adjustments for colleagues with disabilities, including flexibility in office attendance, location and working patterns. And, as a Disability Confident Leader, we guarantee interviews for a fair and proportionate number of applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the role with a disability, long-term health or neurodivergent condition through the Disability Confident Scheme.

We provide reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process to reduce or remove barriers. Just let us know what you need.

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

• A generous pension contribution of up to 15%

• An 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

If you’re excited by the thought of becoming part of our team, get in touch! We’d love to hear from you!