Group Legal Director - Property Development, Asset Management

The responsibilities with this senior role include: Legal Service Delivery

• Lead on key strategic and complex legal matters relating to real estate development, property/asset management and rural/coastal assets.
• Ensure legal services are delivered efficiently and aligned with business priorities.
• Maintain high standards of legal accuracy, discretion, and responsiveness, particularly when dealing with sensitive stakeholders and constitutional matters.

Leadership and Team

• Work collaboratively with senior leadership colleagues in the department to ensure a coordinated and consistent service is delivered to the business overall.
• Coach, mentor and line manage 2 senior associate legal counsels, fostering a high-performance culture and supporting career development.
• Actively contribute to and role model collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and continuous learning across the department and the wider business, championing and facilitating (directly and indirectly) the development of others, mentoring more junior colleagues and supporting succession planning.
• Champion diversity, inclusion and wellbeing within the department and across the wider business.

Legal Business Partnering

• Act as the lead strategic legal advisor for the two business units, embedding legal expertise into strategic decision-making.
• Provide proactive, pragmatic and solution-oriented legal advice that effectively balances commercial opportunity with legal risk, taking into consideration other risk factors of relevance (e.g. reputational, financial, sustainability etc.).
• Build strong and trusted relationships with senior business leaders, acting as a critical friend and sounding board.
• Support the business in navigating constitutional matters and sensitive stakeholder relationships with discretion and integrity.

External Legal Panel Management

• Manage relationships with external panel firms supporting the business units.
• Ensure legal advice received externally is of the highest quality, commercially sound, and aligned with business needs.
• Drive cost certainty and reduction in external legal spend, ensuring value for money and effective use of resources.
• Monitor performance and delivery of panel firms, providing feedback and ensuring continuous improvement.

Governance and Strategic Support

• Work closely with the Group Head of Legal to ensure effective support at Board and Executive level.
• Contribute to the development and implementation of legal strategy, policies, and frameworks.
• Support the organisation's constitutional obligations and governance processes.

Operational Excellence

• Work collaboratively with Legal, Ethics & Compliance colleagues to help champion and drive improvements in legal operations, including digital transformation, process optimisation and risk management.
• Monitor legal trends and regulatory developments, ensuring the business remains compliant and informed.
• Provide an external perspective that brings best practices, experience and insight from other organisations.