Legal Counsel

Market Axess is on a journey to digitally transform one of the world’s largest financial markets, enabling the shift from analog, phone-based trading to a fully electronic marketplace. Why does this matter? Because our platform makes trading fixed‑income more accessible, ultimately improving transparency, efficiency, and competition in the marketplace. Changing the way an established industry transacts is no easy feat. There will be twists and turns, because no one’s ever done this before.

But now, more than 2,000 clients around the world rely on our solutions, and that number is only expected to grow in the years ahead. We know where we’re going. How we get there is up to us. Join us and help Take Us There.

As part of the Legal team, the Legal Counsel will be involved in a broad range of legal in‑house disciplines and opportunities and will have the opportunity to get involved with business matters from the outset. This role is an excellent opportunity to play a key part in helping to maintain a strong legal culture and in supporting the business to lawfully achieve its growth ambitions.

Reporting directly to Assistant General Counsel and working closely with other members of the team in EMEA and APAC Legal and Compliance team (located in London). The Legal and Compliance team is headed by the General Counsel for EMEA and APAC (London) and comprises a team of 13 (4 lawyers, 1 paralegal, 1 Regulatory Affairs & 7 Compliance professionals across the UK, EU and Asia).

The Legal Counsel will work as a team member of the EMEA & APAC Legal team, and shall support the team’s workload generally,

• Being first point of contact in contractual processes and vendor management, asking initial questions and working with internal stakeholders to understand the types of services, and identify any legal and regulatory implications, outsourcing, privacy, intellectual property, liability, insurance, employment etc and to proactively manage to resolution as necessary
• Advising, negotiating and drafting commercial contracts for a wide range of services, both incoming and outgoing, such as vendor agreements, software license agreements, data contracts, client agreements and amendments for new products and customers, standard terms of business, intra group agreements and NDAs
• Review and possible renegotiation of existing contracts due to new regulatory obligations imposed pursuant to the forthcoming Digital Operational Resilience Act
• The candidate will be expected to take on primary responsibility for drafting and negotiating such agreements, and representing the company on commercial negotiations, and proactively managing the negotiations through to execution of the contract, with minimal supervision and escalating as appropriate
• Managing high volume contractual workflow and demand for legal support, by regular interaction with the business
• Liaising with the internal HR team as the first point of contact for employment related queries and first drafts of agreement (with supervision); and
• Ensuring proper distribution of executed agreements
• Assisting with company secretarial work and liaising with EU Finance team on ad hoc matters

• Mid level UK/ Common law qualified lawyer with some experience of working without close supervision
• In house experience strongly preferred
• Experience in drafting and negotiating commercial contracts without close supervision (data or software in particular) governed by English law or other common law jurisdiction required
• Experience in drafting employment agreements and in‑house employment matters preferred
• Corporate / technology experience preferred
• An understanding of privacy law and outsourcing rules in the EU or UK, sufficient to incorporate into contracts and understand client queries, is strongly preferred
• Strong written and verbal skills, ability to communicate efficiently and succinctly
• Excellent grammatical and drafting skills
• An enjoyment of contract drafting and interest in the law, attention to detail
• Organised, highly efficient, diligent and ability to prioritise pro‑actively [and with remote management]
• Ability and/or willingness to work…