Senior Lawyer

City & Capital are delighted to be representing an expanding investment house and commercial property finance lender who have retained our services to appoint an accomplished & suitably qualified Senior Lawyer to their growing business at a genuinely exciting time.

This prestigious lender has achieved exponential growth in recent years, doubling in size over each of the last 4 years. Increased investment and ambitions to be the leading player in their sector mean they are expecting to achieve the same feat again for the fifth time this year and so they are actively bolstering key departments ahead of these exciting objectives.

The Senior Lawyer role will sit within our clients brand new and growing legal & compliance department and will report directly in to the company General Counsel. The lenders GC joined the business to acclaim in 2023 and is growing the team and specialisms in line with the needs of the business.

This is a key and critical appointment that also comes with plenty of progression opportunity as well as it is expected that arriving individual will act as the GC’s 'Number 2’ which means over time, the potential of building a busy legal team beneath you, as well as playing a key role in strategic and commercial legal decisioning for the lender may be prevalent, where excellent performance is delivered.

The core focus of this role will be on the core focus of the business. Real estate lending and real estate investment activity and transactions.

Due to growth, the lender is handling more applications, transactions & borrowers than ever before. Due to this, they are keen to identify and appoint an experienced, knowledgeable and ambitious Senior Lawyer who can join the team in support of the GC.

Key Responsibilities

• Work closely with General Counsel on legal strategies aligned to growth plans
• Conduct due diligence on deals and propose legal risk based solutions
• Assist loan management team with debt recovery & non-performing loans
• Support litigation activity related to lending or investments
• Draft, review & negotiate documentation for bridging loans & BTL mortgages
• Assist with driving the lending pipeline forward through proactive activity
• Contribute to policies and provide training on legal/compliance issues
• Implement companywide training to support broader legal understanding
• Act as key point of contact for external legal stakeholders to processes
• Assist with broader 'general’ legal matters that impact the business

Essential Requirements

• 5+ years' PQE experience specialising in real estate/lending transactions
• A strong background in debt recovery/management is beneficial
• Strong record acting for lenders/borrowers on complex property deals
• Commercially-minded with ability to foresee legal risks and solutions
• Qualified Solicitor (UK & Wales)
• First-class communication and negotiation skills
• Meticulous team player with excellent attention to detail
• Ambitious & keen to grow within

Due to the high growth nature of our client, this role would certainly suit an individual who is proactive in approach, quick to spot potential issues or opportunities on the horizon, and comfortable in addressing them. You will be calm and confident in terms of dealing with matters that require you to react and will demonstrate outstanding communication & negotiation skills.

You will be highly confident when it comes to legal documentation and processes that underpin real estate investment and lending and critically will be highly transactional and capable of supporting the broader business units with advice and guidance on topical aspects of the ongoing loan pipeline, to address concerns or to drive forward activity. This is likely to be teams such as the sales or underwriting functions at early stages of deals.

Equally, you will be able to demonstrate that you understand how to manage live loans with borrowers that are active in the loan book. A key element of this role will include supporting the collections and recoveries team on problem cases, so this experience will be key for this role. Experience in real estate recoveries would be ideal, however if you do not have this, experience of other types of secured loan recovery would be acceptable.

Our client is ideally looking to pay to c£130k as a basic salary for the ideal individual, though higher offers may be considered for exceptional talent & experience. This will be complemented by an excellent bonus potential to assist in increasing earnings further still as well as the excellent progression potential for this particular individual.

Most notably is the progression potential previously noted. Our clients growth has been underpinned by their strong & proven promote from within policy and will continue with their preference of promoting from within for this and future roles within the firm.

So this is certainly much more of a career opportunity, rather than just 'another job’ for those with ambitions to find somewhere where they can propel their career standing & salary forward within.

Due to the highly central and collaborative nature of this role, it will be based in our clients Mayfair offices Monday - Friday.

Due to the nature of who our client is, plus the exciting potential to progress within, we do not expect this role to be available for long. Therefore if you feel suitably qualified and interested in exploring this further, do apply as quickly as possible.

We will then review your application and where it is deemed that your experience does meet the requirements of the brief, we will be in contact for an initial chat to share more with you on the client and role and to understand better your expectations & circumstances.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,