Labour & Employment Counsel Manager

Labour & Employment Counsel Manager

About Accenture Legal:

Accenture Legal encompasses over 3200 lawyers, contract management and other professionals in 46 countries, making us amongst the biggest in-house units of our kind globally. We are a multi-disciplinary team and provide a range of legal services and support for our internal teams, including Contracting & Contract Management, Board & Corporate, Litigation, Employment law, and Ventures & Acquisitions.

The Employment Law Team sits within the Compliance, Offerings, Regulatory & Ethics (CORE) function within Legal, and offers the full range of Employment Law services from advisory and litigation support on HR and Employee Relations issues to implementing compliance projects and supporting transactional matters.

What responsibilities will you have:

This sits across a UK, Ireland and Africa team, the predominant focus of the will be on Ireland Employment Law matters, with ad hoc responsibility/holiday cover for occasional UK and/or Africa matters.

Reporting into the Employment Law Lead for UK & Ireland, this is an exciting opportunity to work directly with key stakeholders across a workload that is both interesting and varied:

• Provide strategic and pragmatic Employment Law advice on advisory matters to key internal stakeholders – including HR, ER, Mobilisation and Leadership.
• Oversee and provide support for litigation and pre-litigation matters, in conjunction with Employee Relations team and external counsel.
• Manage Employment Law projects in UKIA and input to UKIA strands of Global initiatives.
• Provide operational and strategic support for transactional matters:
  • Outsourcing – negotiating and advising on contractual aspects of outsourcing deals (including HR Schedules), risk management and transition of staff into (and out from) Accenture.
  • Ventures & Acquisitions – advising primarily on Employment Law aspects of post-merger integration activities (with occasional input on “transactional” stage e.g. due diligence, risk mitigation and deal execution).
• Advise on industrial relation and collective bargaining issues, particularly collective consultation requirements (both in ER and transactional circumstances).
• Contribute to development of Know How – internal guidelines, toolkits, and packaged knowledge on Employment Law and business issues for the region.
• Manage and oversee external counsel relationships with law firms as appropriate, including budget management.
• Identify opportunities for process improvements, proactively and as part of post-matter reviews. Make recommendations and escalate to the Senior Manager Employment Law Lead UKIA on material Employment issues.
• Stay abreast of legal developments impacting on Accenture, its clients, and industries and incorporate it into company practices.
• Support, promote and implement initiatives as part of broader Legal team.

Work experience:

• Post-qualification experience within an Employment Law team, whether private practice and/or – ideally – in an in-house environment.
• Employment Law experience relevant to the key responsibilities outlined above.
• Preferably, some exposure to cross-border work or European projects.
• Preferably, some exposure to working with or for large corporates and/or senior stakeholders.
• Presentations and provision of training.

Skills:

• Irish law qualified lawyer, with expertise in Employment Law.
• Content knowledge across Employment Law responsibilities outlined above.
• Ability to work closely with a wide range of personnel – both external and internal to Accenture – including frequent interaction with senior stakeholders and Leadership.
• Negotiation and project management skills.
• Strong drafting skills.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills in English.
• Ability to influence and strong executive presence.
• Commercial acumen.
• Able to present innovative, original solutions and to act as a strategic thinker.
• Responsive and follows through on commitments.
• Strong time management, prioritization and organizational skills.

Work Requirements:

• Ability to work flexibly, including from home.
• Some (limited) travel required/possible.