General Counsel - Part-time

At Joseph Joseph, we are driven by a simple yet powerful belief — that intelligent design has the ability to transform everyday living. We create distinctive, thoughtfully engineered products that not only solve real-world problems but also bring joy, beauty, and functionality to daily life.

Headquartered in London, we have grown into one of the world’s most admired houseware brands, with a presence in over 100 countries and partnerships with leading department stores, independent retailers, and a rapidly expanding e-commerce business.

We are looking for a pragmatic lawyer to serve as the Group’s General Counsel, providing commercially focused legal leadership across the business on a part-time basis, working 3 days per week.

The successful candidate will be a trusted adviser to senior leadership, taking overall accountability for legal risk, governance and the effective operation of the Legal function. The successful applicant will lead a hands-on, two-person core Legal team and build on the function’s existing service standards and ways of working, identifying opportunities to enhance and evolve them.

What you will be doing:

• Own and lead the Legal function, setting its strategy, priorities and operating model and ensuring that legal support is aligned with the Group’s commercial objectives.
• Act as the principal legal adviser to the senior leadership team, contributing an independent legal and risk perspective to material commercial, strategic and governance decisions.
• Draft, review and negotiate a broad range of commercial contracts, including agreements relating to intellectual property, customer and distributor relationships, key suppliers (third party manufacturing and warehousing, marketing services, other)
• Review and approve legal compliance of JJ advertising and social media content
• Manage disputes, claims and other significant legal matters, working with external advisers where appropriate.
• Own the Group’s legal and regulatory framework across compliance, privacy, GDPR, ECCTA, governance, company secretarial, consumer and competition law, advising senior leadership on material risks and ensuring appropriate controls and escalation.
• Own the legal budget, resource allocation and external-adviser strategy, using specialist support selectively where additional expertise or capacity is required.
• Provide strategic oversight of the Group’s intellectual property and brand-protection portfolio, directing priorities, the IP Paralegal / Legal Operations resource and specialist external advisers in support of commercial growth.
• Oversee the proportionate adoption of technology, including AI, across legal workflows, with appropriate governance, data safeguards and human oversight.
• Set the Legal function’s guidance, reporting and training priorities, delivering or delegating work appropriately within the core team.

What we need from you:

• A UK-qualified solicitor with approximately 8–12 years’ PQE, substantial in-house experience, a strong private-practice foundation and broad commercial legal expertise.
• A pragmatic, solutions-focused approach, with the judgement to balance legal risk and commercial objectives.
• Strong commercial drafting and negotiation skills, with the judgement to distinguish routine matters from material legal and commercial risks.
• Experience managing disputes, regulatory compliance, GDPR and privacy matters, governance and external legal advisers.
• Experience ensuring consumer products and their advertising comply with all relevant laws
• Experience working in a business with a global footprint and in a scale up environment where business needs are dynamic.
• Some experience supporting company secretarial and corporate governance matters.
• The ability to provide effective oversight of intellectual property and brand-protection matters, working with the IP Paralegal and specialist external advisers.
• A collaborative and approachable style, with sufficient authority, judgement and confidence to influence senior stakeholders, provide clear independent advice and constructively challenge decisions where required.
• The ability to prioritise competing demands, make risk-based decisions and explain complex legal issues clearly and concisely.
• The ability to adapt to new technologies and adopt tools that offer practical, cost-effective benefits.
• Experience improving legal processes through effective templates, guidance, reporting and deployment of legal-support resources.

What you will get from us:

• Competitive salary and holiday allowance
• Company performance related bonus
• A pension contribution
• An exclusive staff discount
• 24/7 healthcare appointment support
• Working three days per week, with hybrid working and flexible start and finish times.
• External private employee wellbeing support
• Access to Perkbox
• Volunteer days
• Team Recognition scheme
• Holiday carry-over scheme
• Cycle to work scheme
• Parental Leave support
• Holiday trading (buy/sell) and extra holiday days for long service