Legal Counsel – Fixed term contract 12 months

Overview

Why choose Ultimate Finance

At Ultimate Finance, we back ambition – properly. We’re a specialist lender built for pace, flexibility and real-world problem solving, helping businesses access funding that fits how they work. You’ll join a team of approachable experts who move quickly, speak clearly and take pride in doing the right thing for customers and partners. We trust people to take ownership, with supportive leaders and experienced teammates on hand. With 20+ years’ experience and over £17bn funded, we’re growing – and we’re looking for people who want to do work that matters.

About the team

Our Legal and Compliance team plays a central role in supporting our business, providing practical, commercially focused legal advice that enables growth while managing risk effectively. Working closely with colleagues across sales, credit and operations, the team supports a wide range of activities, with a strong focus on our core lending products. Collaborative and highly visible, the team works in partnership with the business to understand risk and find solutions that keep things moving forward.

About the role

We are looking for a lawyer to join the Legal and Compliance team on a fixed term basis for a period of 12 months with a view to the role becoming permanent. You will be a key member of the team and work closely with our Senior Legal Counsel to provide transactional support, with a particular focus on our invoice finance and asset finance products. There will also be an opportunity to work on matters relating to the overall Group’s function, where we cover commercial contracts, GDPR, employment, property, banking and finance and corporate secretarial.

This is an excellent opportunity for you to gain meaningful in house experience within a fast paced specialist asset-based lender.

Key responsibilities

• Assisting with the review of share purchase agreements and asset purchase agreements relating to Management Buy Outs/Management Buy Ins and share purchases that we are funding.
• Supporting the onboarding of new clients, including wider transaction management.
• Advising on any amendments to standard security documents to reflect client and credit requirements, including negotiating deeds of priority and other ancillary documents with third parties
• Providing advice to key stakeholders regarding transactions and security structures.
• Assisting with putting property legal charges in place.
• Reviewing and advising on the legal implications of general commercial relationships and contracts across the business (i.e. contracts for services, NDAs etc).
• Assisting with queries relating to recoveries litigation, administrations and liquidations
• Liaising with external professional advisers (including legal and insolvency practitioners).

Characteristics & Behaviours

We are open to all levels of experience, but anticipate that this role would be best suited to someone who has just qualified or is in the early stages of their in house or private practice career. Whatever stage you are at, you will need a solid understanding of banking and finance law, with ideally some knowledge of asset based lending – particularly invoice finance and asset finance in the unregulated space.

But ultimately, who you are and what drives you, is key. We are looking for people who really want to get involved with the business – curiosity about what we do and how we do it is vital, as the team and this role have wide exposure to the business. Whilst we have processes in place to help anyone who joins us, you will need to be comfortable with being proactive and using your initiative to solve issues and challenges as and when they arise.

Attention to detail – Ownership and Resilience – Strong communicator

Attention to detail – this is a role that focuses on legal process to ensure that legal risk is managed properly across the business and the transactions we enter into. A keen eye for detail is essential.

Ownership– As you get to know the business, you will appreciate that we all look out for each other and therefore if something doesn’t look right or, if you think something has been missed, it is important that you are happy to speak up and help work with others to solve the problem.

Resilience is vital, as is the ability to stay calm under pressure whilst maintaining focus and prioritising work requests. As this role is key to ensuring transactions are paid out to clients, you will need to be comfortable being reactive to others needs as well as proactive in anticipating them, so we deliver an effective service from start to finish. No two facilities are ever the same and this is a great opportunity which to help develop a wide range of skills and deepen your knowledge about asset based lending and other areas of law. Where we ask you to look at things outside of your comfort zone, we are not expecting an expert, but someone who is keen to learn and apply all the transferrable skills you have as a lawyer to the task in hand.

Communication plays a key part in achieving good outcomes for our business and its client, so you will need to be an excellent communicator. Knowing when to refer to others and having the skills to bring stakeholders together is really important, together with being able to present complex information clearly and concisely.

Location and how we work

Bristol or Edinburgh. We work on a hybrid basis with a minimum of two days per week in the office on a Tuesday and Wednesday.

Why us?

This is a great opportunity to learn new things and understand what life in house is like for a team that is highly visible and embraced by the business. You will get a chance to learn about every aspect of what we do and will be part of the wider Legal and Compliance team which is currently 10 strong, based across the UK. We also have a strong IT infrastructure and you will have access to legal specific tools, including our matter management tool HighQ, Wordsmith AI and PLC.

Whilst the day job is important, we encourage people to step out of their normal role and responsibilities and they will have the opportunity to be involved in business wide initiatives such as our CSR Give a Day or Mental Health and Wellbeing initiatives and any socials going on in the office you attend.