We are looking for an Associate/Senior Associate to join our highly regarded Commercial team in any of our UK offices, with a particular focus on Media and Technology contracts and regulatory work including e-commerce, consumer law and digital regulation. This is an exciting opportunity to join a growing team and advise on high value, strategically important, and often international, projects within a supportive and collegiate environment with lots of room for the development of your career.
The practice
Our lawyers "can always be relied on to provide pragmatic advice which demonstrates a deep understanding" - Legal 500
"They have in-depth knowledge and offer commercially aware advice."- Chambers & Partners
"Osborne Clarke can always be relied on to provide pragmatic advice which demonstrates a deep understanding of our business. They are very attuned to the legal and regulatory risks that we face and the compliance challenges, and are quick to provide practical, real-world guidance on how they can be addressed" - Legal 500
"Everyone I have dealt with at Osborne Clarke has been down to earth, extremely knowledgeable and a pleasure to work with". - Legal 500
Our commercial team:
- Our Commercial group provides leading-edge business solutions to clients, ranging from high growth start-ups to multinationals and covering the entire spectrum of commercial activity. It has a strong reputation both with local and national clients requiring support on strategically important commercial projects.
- This opportunity is to work for the Media team, which sits within the Commercial group.
- To find out more about OC's Commercial practice, please see here: http://www.osborneclarke.com/services/commercial/
Our firm's sector focus:
- As a firm we focus on particular sectors, including financial services, energy and utilities and tech media and comms (TMC) where this role will have a particular focus.
- Within the TMC sector we have a market leading team whose core focus is Digital Media and Entertainment, working with digital platforms, complex technology businesses and disruptive future facing services helping to develop game-changing technologies and innovative business models.
- You can read more about our TMC focus here: https://www.osborneclarke.com/sectors/technology-media-and-communications
- We are ranked as a Tier 1 firm in Media and Entertainment. Legal 500 says: "Osborne Clarke LLP's team 'can always be relied on to provide pragmatic advice which demonstrates a deep understanding' of the industry. It is noted for its strength in handling regulatory, commercial and contentious issues for clients in the advertising, broadcasting, sports and gaming industries. It has particular expertise in the digital content space. Team head Ashley Hurst is a key contact for media and data disputes, while John Davidson-Kelly is recommended for advice on digital media regulation, as well as media and technology agreements. Advertising and marketing law specialist Nick Johnson is praised as 'an expert in his field'. Anna Williams advises on a range of advertising and sponsorship projects. Corporate partner Ken Wilkinson and associate director Ben Dunham are also recommended."
The team
Spanning all three of our UK based offices and working closely together, the Commercial department is made up of over 60 lawyers in total.
This opportunity involves working closely with the Advertising, Media and Consumer team (which is a part of the Commercial team) including John Davidson Kelly, Anna Williams, Tom Harding and Nick Johnson.
We work in a proactive, collegiate, fast-paced environment with a focus on increasing the team's knowledge and skill set, utilising legal tech (where possible), building deep relationships with our clients and providing practical advice as an extension of their in-house teams. Essentially we like to do interesting work for interesting clients!
There will also be plenty of scope to work with colleagues across different service lines and in our international offices.
The work
- We work for exciting clients including TikTok, Warner Brothers Discovery, Facebook and Microsoft on all manner of commercial agreements (ranging from marketing agreements to content licensing) and regulatory questions (ranging from launching a new product or digital service, to the implementation of new legislation), many of them involving an element of international coordination.
- Interactive entertainment is a key focus of the team. By way of example:
- we continue to advise multinational gaming client Bandai Namco and its group companies on various commercial, regulatory and IP matters over the last year, from advertising and marketing to regulatory compliance checks to virtual currencies to games development and content and rights licensing.
- we advise Miniclip across multiple commercial and regulatory matters, from advertising regulatory compliance checks to partnering deals, to and content regulatory work and rights licensing.
- We also have a large number of "platform clients" (including those listed above) which we advise on a day to day basis including:
- Trip Advisor who we advise on multiple matters from data protection to litigation to consumer regulatory matters.
- Other well-known travel platforms who we advise on international advertising campaigns, loyalty schemes and brand endorsement deals.
- Another key area of focus of the team is working with broadcasters and OTT providers. For example:
- we have recently been appointed to the ITV panel;
- we work with Discovery on a day to day basis on commercial and OTT regulatory issues; and
- we work with clients like Channel 4, DAZN and GB News on various regulatory and commercial issues.
- Finally, we are recognised as tier 1 for our advertising and marketing practice and our long-standing team advise a range of well-known advertisers, advertising agencies and media owners on a range of regulatory issues and contractual matters including:
- advising brands on the terms of sponsorship and brand endorsement deals they enter into;
- innovative advertising techniques and data-driven marketing issues;
- advising brands on strategic decisions involving pricing, environmental claims and comparative advertising; and
- negotiating a range of contracts within the advertising ecosystem between brands, agencies, suppliers, media owners, talent and rights holders which all feed into advertising campaigns.
Technical skills and experience
Ideally you will have knowledge and experience across:
- Commercial Advertising, Media and Consumer contracts (eg marketing related agreements, B2C terms and conditions, content licences); and
- Advertising, Media and Consumer regulation (eg advising on the application of the Consumer Rights Act and the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations, as well as CAP Code compliance and ASA investigations),
which will have been gained at a city, national or large regional law firm recognised for its commercial and regulatory practice, or in-house.
Due to the nature of the work and the structure of the team, we are looking for an Associate or Senior Associate level lawyer with previous experience advising on these issues, although we will consider candidates with more or less experience. This is a good opportunity for a Commercial Associate to take on a more client-facing role than they may previously have been used to.
Salary and benefits
We offer competitive salaries and generous benefits .
For more information or to apply
At Osborne Clarke we welcome direct applications - if you would like any further information about the role, or the firm, we would be delighted to hear from you. Please contact, in complete confidence, Rachael Hardwick in the recruitment team on [email protected].
At Osborne Clarke we value difference and encourage applicants from all social backgrounds, ethnicities, disabilities, gender identities, and sexual or romantic orientations. We want everyone to feel that OC is a place where you can be yourself and where you belong, and our range of interest groups and diversity networks - not to mention our great teams - are a part of making that a reality.
We support working families via a range of family and caring friendly policies and will accommodate flexible working where we can. We value the health and wellbeing of our people: for example, we're signatories to the Mindful Business Charter, have an active network of mental health champions and offer free initiatives and flexible benefits to all our people.
Being an inclusive employer is important to us. We have made a number of external commitments such as the Race Fairness Commitment and Women in Law Pledge, and are working with organisations like Stonewall to become a more inclusive employer.
Osborne Clarke is a Living Wage Employer, so we're committed to paying everybody in our business enough to live on and to enable them to save for the future.
We want you to be able to show us your best during the recruitment process. If you require any adjustments to be made during the application, interview process or when working with us, please let us know.