Our Commercial team in Newcastle is at the heart of one of the most dynamic regions in the UK.  Acting for an enviable client base across the North East of England, we lead a broad mix of commercial contracting work on regionally and nationally significant projects, while also supporting cross-border and international matters.

Our clients include household names and multinational companies as well as established local businesses and rapidly scaling SMEs and also the public sector. Our work is closely aligned with the North East's growth agenda and offers genuine opportunity to contribute to the regions' prosperity, whether that is advising on major energy transition and infrastructure projects, complex supply chain matters or technology arrangements.

With deep sector knowledge in areas such as advanced manufacturing, energy and renewables, transport and logistics, life sciences and international trade, our North East team plays a central role in delivering strategic advice on projects that are shaping the regional economy and leading the way nationally.

The North East is a truly international region with a proud track record of overseas expansion and as a destination for inward investors - the work we do reflects that.  We work closely with colleagues across the UK, the US and our Lex Mundi international network, to support clients on cross-border mandates, while maintaining a strong local focus and longstanding relationships in the North East market.

Your role

With such significant and exciting regional opportunities, you will:

• Lead complex, high-value and genuinely interesting projects at the forefront of the North East's industrial and energy transition landscape
• Develop a deep understanding of our clients' businesses and the challenges facing their sectors, enabling you to work in partnership with them on contract strategy, drafting, negotiation and risk management

We pride ourselves on delivering advice that is accessible, pragmatic and commercially focused, adopting an ‘in-house' approach. The work you will do is built on strong, longstanding relationships with clients and which reflect this collaborative and trusted way of working.

The North East benefits from a highly engaged and collegiate business community. Our team is at the centre of this. We regularly host events, lead conversations on the issues most affecting business and we play a significant role in key regional bodies, industry networks and clusters. This provides a platform for meaningful client engagement and profile-raising in the sectors that matter most to the region.

What does the ideal candidate look like?

We are looking for a commercially focused senior lawyer who combines technical expertise with leadership and client development capability.  We want to hear from lawyers who are currently in house or in private practice.  If you've got strong commercial contracts experience, we'd love to hear from you.

To be successful you will have the minimum requirements:

• UK-qualified solicitor (England, Wales or Scotland) with 7+ years strong commercial contracts experience
• Significant experience advising on complex, high-value transactions
• Excellent drafting, negotiation and communication skills
• Proven ability to lead matters and deliver clear, practical advice to non-lawyers
• Commitment to training and developing other lawyers
• Eagerness to get involved with business development activities

The role is primarily based in Newcastle, with the opportunity to work across our North East offices in both Newcastle and Teesside, while also collaborating closely with colleagues in Leeds and other offices across the firm.

We continually work hard to create an open culture that sets us apart from other firms. Our culture gives us much more of a human feel, emphasising that we're more than just suits!

As signatories to the Mindful Business Charter, it's important to us that our people are able to maintain healthy and happy lives, both in and out of work. We have a number of resources and initiatives designed to support health and wellbeing and we're very happy to talk flexible working.

Through our DEI initiatives we create an environment in which difference is valued. We have an Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Group, led by our Board Sponsor, which works with our colleague networks (we currently have firm supported networks for race, ethnicity, and cultural heritage, LGBTQ+, disabilities, neurodiversity, families, and women's career development and we're in constant dialogue with our people about how we expand our networks to better support everybody). Find out more about DEI at WBD here. We encourage applicants from all social backgrounds, ethnicities, disabilities, gender identities and sexual orientations.

We are committed to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible to all. If you have a disability or long term condition and need us to make any adjustments to give you the best possible recruitment process, please let us know by contacting the recruiter on the right hand side of this page. Please also let us know if you need this job advert or the application form in a different format.

We will offer an interview to candidates with a disability or long-term condition who meet the minimum criteria for this role. You can opt into this scheme within the application form. Your response to this question is only used for this purpose, is only visible to the recruitment team and is not used for data monitoring. 

We are an in-house recruitment team and will always aim to fill our roles directly in the first instance. If you're an agency, please click here for ways that you can work with us.