Legal Counsel (Derivatives) - 12 month Contract role

Who we're looking for?

An enthusiastic, proactive and strong candidate who is interested in gaining experience in a broad, challenging and rewarding full-service role.  The successful candidate will have excellent technical skills, a can-do mentality and commercial approach, be inquisitive and able to develop creative legal solutions, have the confidence to assess business and legal risk to prioritise workload demands, and strong interpersonal and communication skills required to build constructive working relationships with various internal stakeholders and external advisers.

About Schroders

We're a global investment manager. We help institutions, intermediaries and individuals around the world invest money to meet their goals, fulfil their ambitions, and prepare for the future.
We have around 5,000 people on six continents. And we've been around for over 200 years, but keep adapting as society and technology changes. What doesn't change is our commitment to helping our clients, and society, prosper.

Schroder Investment legal team is made up of numerous lawyers and paralegals.  We support the investment business in reviewing, drafting and advising on various drafting agreements.

The focus of the role would be various forms of derivatives work.

Duties
 

• Provide full legal support to Schroders’ derivatives and all trading activities.
• Supporting Schroders, in London and Luxembourg, Asia-Pacific and the Americas, in the increasing use of derivative instruments, advising on the legal implications and dealing with all legal documentation requirements; keeping work tracker updated at all times.
• Drafting, reviewing, negotiating and completing Schroders’ OTC derivatives documentation (ISDA, VM & IM CSA, Accession and Amendment Agreements).
• Drafting, reviewing, negotiating and completing other market counterparty documentation (GMRA, FX trading agreements, MCAs, clearing agreements, prime brokerage agreements, business terms of market counterparties, confidentiality agreements).
• Analysing and advising on new derivatives products in which Schroders is considering to invest on behalf of its clients. 
• Using efficiently outside counsel and other in-house legal resources.  Obtaining focused advice where appropriate.
• Liaising clearly and openly with line manager and with all departments/areas using derivatives.

Essential Skills

• University degree or equivalent; and qualified lawyer 
• Strong team player
• Demonstrated experience as a qualified lawyer in private practice and/or in-house in a financial services firm (ideally investment management), in each case with an in-depth knowledge of derivatives work.
• Exposure to wide range of ISDA documentation, GMRA, FX trading agreements and structured finance.
• Good drafting and written communication skills. 
• Able to develop and demonstrate strong working relationships with other members of the firm, including (but not limited to) fund managers, client directors, compliance, operations, credit / risk and product control; and with counterparty lawyers, credit, operational and front office staff.