The role in a nutshell
UNiDAYS, the world's leading Student Affinity Network, is seeking an experienced commercial lawyer to join us as Interim Corporate Counsel for a minimum of 12 months maternity cover contract. You will be the primary commercial lawyer supporting our student-verification platform operating across 118 regions and our 800+ global brand partnerships.
This is a hands-on role in a fast-moving commercial environment. We are looking for a strong commercial contracting operator who combines sound legal judgment with exceptional organisation, attention to detail and stakeholder management skills.
Success in this role will come from being highly organised, responsive and pragmatic. You will be expected to manage a significant volume of commercial agreements, maintain visibility across the contracting pipeline, meet agreed SLAs and build strong relationships with stakeholders across the business.
You will be comfortable rolling up your sleeves, working directly in Salesforce and DocuSign CLM and balancing competing demands without losing attention to detail.
Reporting to the Global General Counsel, you will partner closely with senior commercial leaders and colleagues across New Business, Commercial, Finance and Operations to ensure contracting processes move efficiently while remaining accurate, organised and commercially effective.

Responsibilities

Day-to-day responsibilities

• Lead the commercial contracting function, ensuring frameworks and processes support growth across the UK, US, Germany, Australia, India and other key markets.
• Draft, review and negotiate a wide range of commercial agreements, including complex partnership agreements, brand marketing contracts and insertion orders and strategic commercial arrangements.
• Advise New Business and Commercial teams on deal structures, risk allocation, commercial levers and operational implications.
• Own legal contracting SLAs across the business, ensuring agreements are progressed, negotiated and executed with agreed turnaround times.
• Proactively manage competing priorities, bottlenecks and stakeholder expectations while maintaining pace, quality and risk standards.
• Maintain and continuously improve templates, playbooks, approval paths and workflows, ensuring contracting is organised, efficient and aligned with Salesforce-driven processes.
• Oversee the full contract lifecycle from initial negotiation through execution, amendment and renewal, working with cross-functional teams to ensure compliance and operational effectiveness.
• Partner with Operations team to ensure contracting systems, workflows and records remain accurate, organised and optimised.
• Maintain rigorous contract records, reporting dashboards and pipeline visibility, ensuring stakeholders have accurate information on contract status, risks, approvals and execution timelines.
• Produce clear, concise reporting on contracting volumes, turnaround times, SLA performance, pipeline status, key risks and commercial trends.
• Deliver training and guidance to commercial teams on contract fundamentals, contracting processes and operational best practices.
• Build trusted relationships with stakeholders across the business and confidently manage challenging conversations, competing priorities and requests for accelerated turnaround times.
• Exercise sound commercial judgment, balancing legal risk, operational realities and business objectives to help deals progress efficiently.

Requirements

What we need from you

• Qualified lawyer (UK or equivalent); minimum 5+ years' post-qualification experience.
• Significant in-house commercial contracting experience within a fast-paced business environment.
• Demonstrable experience managing a high-volume commercial contracting workload.
• Proven track record of consistently meeting or exceeding legal SLA targets.
• Experience negotiating both company paper and third-party paper across a broad range of commercial agreements.
• Proven experience managing multiple active negotiations simultaneously while maintaining quality and responsiveness.
• Strong operational mindset with experience managing contracting workflows, reporting and process improvement.
• Experience supporting demanding commercial stakeholders in deadline-driven environments.
• Experience producing management reporting and KPI dashboards relating to contracting volume, turnaround times, SLA performance and legal operations metrics.
• Strong attention to detail and exceptional organisational skills, with the ability to manage multiple competing priorities simultaneously.
• Strong commercial judgment with the ability to distinguish between material risks that require escalation and issues that can be resolved pragmatically to keep business moving.

Desirable experience

• Experience with affiliate partnerships, CPA models or performance-based digital marketing agreements.
• Experience supporting multi-jurisdictional commercial operations.
• Experience with contract lifecycle management systems and commercial workflow tools.
• Prior experience with Salesforce and DocuSign CLM.

Personal attributes

• Pragmatic, commercially minded and highly resilient.
• Comfortable making risk-based decisions and operating with a high degree of autonomy.
• Able to remain calm, professional and solutions-focused when managing urgent requests, changing priorities and strong stakeholder personalities.
• Confident building credibility quickly with senior stakeholders and navigating situations where commercial teams are operating under significant time pressure.
• Strong negotiation and communication skills, with the ability to translate complex legal issues into clear, commercially relevant advice.
• Highly organised, process-oriented and naturally detail-focused.
• Low ego, collaborative and willing to roll up your sleeves when needed.
• A dependable team player who takes ownership and follows through on commitments.

Benefits

This is your opportunity to Join the world’s largest student verification network and help shape the future of how brands connect with the next generation. We engage a community of 23M+ verified students and graduates across 115 markets, making us a truly global platform. Our brand is a powerhouse in the UK, and we’re rapidly accelerating our presence worldwide—especially in the US, Germany, India, France, Canada, and Australia.
We partner with 850+ of the world’s biggest brands, bringing their products and services to the hearts and minds of tomorrow’s professionals—driving engagement, building affinity, and delivering real results.
We offer a fast-paced, fun, and social working environment where you can truly make an impact. We believe work should enhance and complement your life, which is why we provide a flexible hybrid working model. While there are expectations to attend the London campus periodically, you and your manager will determine the most appropriate balance together, ensuring both your needs and the needs of the business are met.
We work hard at UNiDAYS, and we believe in fair compensation for that hard work. That’s why we’re proud to offer all employees full access to our comprehensive benefits package.
Our perks include:

• 25 days holiday per year increasing with length of service, plus bank holidays
• Competitive salaries
• 4pm finishes every Friday
• Company pension scheme
• Private health insurance (BUPA)
• Dental Insurance (BUPA)
• Income protection policy
• Life assurance policy
• Employee Assistance Program
• Enhanced parental leave pay
• Regular team building activities
• £150 pounds towards your home office set up

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status or disability status.