Our client is a growing business seeking an experienced interim Paralegal to support a lean in-house legal function during a period of transition.
Ideally we are looking for someone with in-house or commercial sector experience and strong general commercial capability, who is confident, pragmatic, and able to operate autonomously within clear guidelines.
Working largely independently within agreed escalation criteria, this is a hands-on, high-volume role focused on triaging legal queries, advising on day-to-day commercial matters, managing standard commercial contracts, and handling supplier/customer disputes (pre-litigation). The role also includes some company secretarial admin.
Key Responsibilities:
Legal Inbox & Triage
- Own and manage the Legal inbox.
- Triage incoming legal queries from the business including: Sales, Contracts Team, Finance, Marketing, IT and HR.
- Assess risk and prioritise effectively using defined escalation criteria.
- Respond directly to low-risk queries and escalate to the General Counsel where appropriate.
Contract Management (High Volume)
- Provide advice on contract queries.
- Review, draft and negotiate standard commercial agreements, including: customer/client terms of business, supplier terms, NDAs, master services agreements (MSAs), and framework agreements.
- Support customer and supplier disputes at pre-litigation stage, including issue-spotting, drafting responses and coordinating input across the business.
- Support routine company secretarial queries (e.g., filings, registers and governance admin) and escalate where matters fall outside agreed parameters.
- Make amendments within pre-agreed risk parameters and escalate exceptions promptly.
Business Partnering (BAU Support)
- Act as first point of contact for routine legal queries from sales and operations teams.
- Provide clear, commercially pragmatic guidance within defined guardrails.
- Support deal flow by ensuring timely contract turnaround.
Escalation & Risk Management
- Identify when matters fall outside agreed parameters.
- Escalate appropriately to the General Counsel.
- Provide a clear summary and proposed approach when escalating.
Legal Operations & Process Improvement
- Track and report on contract status and legal requests using existing tracker.
- Actively identify opportunities to improve efficiency and existing processes to reduce legal bottlenecks.
- Maintain and update contract templates and clause libraries.
- Support implementation of legal playbooks and processes.
Our client is flexible on office attendance but you will need to attend the London office 2 days per week.
This role is inside IR35 (you will need to contract via an umbrella company).