Legal Counsel

Wickes are a digitally led, service enabled organisation with a project in every home.

Wickes’ culture is a best kept secret; it’s a collaborative, down to earth, fun and inclusive environment where people feel part of a winning team. It’s an exciting time in Wickes’ history as 2020 will be the year that Wickes demerges from the Travis Perkins group and becomes a FTSE 200 company in its own right.

At Wickes we have an exciting opportunity for a qualified Solicitor to join our dedicated in house legal team as Legal Counsel reporting to our Head of Legal. In this role you will be based at our Head Office in Watford and will be responsible for providing commercial and pragmatic legal advice to support and mitigate the risks to our business.

Utilising your excellent communication skills, you will be advising all levels of management on legal issues and business challenges. You will work proactively, with the necessary stakeholders, to make the complex simple and mitigate contractual and legal risk to the business whilst meeting commercial objectives. 

Partnering with colleagues around the business, you will provide support and advice on a wide variety of commercial legal matters including contract drafting and negotiation, dispute management and regulatory and compliance issues. You will support the business with various projects and new initiatives including the implementation and adherence to company policies and procedures and be responsible for preparing and delivering training for colleagues to help them understand and operate more effectively within our legal framework. You will also provide support and guidance to the paralegals in the legal team.

You’ll need five years of experience, ideally in an in-house retail environment, and you'll need to have a demonstrable desire to work in-house and a genuine commitment to be the very best you can.  You will have good experience of drafting and carrying out contract negotiations and will preferably have a strong understanding of data privacy and consumer laws. In addition you will be a ‘hands on’ self-starter and be able to operate at all al levels within a fast paced but rewarding environment.

What can we offer you?

Wickes is one of the UK's favourite home improvement retailers. Having opened its first store in 1972 it now operates from around 240 sites across the UK.  It is currently owned by Travis Perkins but will be demerged in the first half of 2020.  

The successful applicant will participate in the next stage of Wickes’ exciting journey to become a listed company and have the opportunity to help set up our in house legal team and shape the legal team strategy.