Corporate Finance / Transactions Legal Contracts Manager, Grant Thornton UK

• Demonstrated experience in a legal, paralegal or legal process management role, with the ability to handle complex and non-standard documentation matters
• Experience in a financial services professional services environment
• Proven ability to manage multiple concurrent matters, prioritise effectively and maintain accuracy under time pressure
• Experience advising or coordinating with internal risk, compliance or legal stakeholders on documentation or approval workflows
• Strong judgment on when to escalate and when to resolve, with the confidence to engage directly with counterparty legal teams where required
• Clear and confident communicator, able to brief senior stakeholders on documentation status and risks without unnecessary jargon
• It would be great if you had some of the following skills, but don't worry if you don't tick every box, we'll help you develop along the way

Desirable

• The Transaction Legal Coordinator (Manager) sits within Strategic Advisory, leading the central legal process function across our Debt and Capital Advisory and Transaction Advisory Services teams
• Reporting to the Operations Lead for Strategic Advisory, the role has overall accountability for the coordination, preparation and execution of NDAs, release letters, hold harmless letters and related transaction documentation across live engagements
• The Manager oversees the work of the Assistant Manager in the team, acts as the senior escalation point on complex or non-standard documentation matters, and builds and maintains the firm’s relationships with clients, counterparty legal teams and internal risk and legal stakeholders
• This is a senior coordination role requiring strong legal process knowledge, sound commercial judgment and the confidence to represent Grant Thornton in direct dialogue with sophisticated external counterparties on active transactions
• We're happy to talk flexible working and consider reduced hours and job shares, we'll support you to balance your work and life
• As a Transaction Legal Coordinator (Manager) within our Strategic Advisory team, you will:
• Take ownership of the Strategic Advisory legal documentation function, managing the full lifecycle of NDAs, release letters, hold harmless letters and related documentation across Debt and Capital Advisory and Transaction Advisory Services, overseeing the work of the Assistant Manager, and acting as the senior point of contact for deal teams, clients, lenders and external legal advisers on all documentation matters
• Act as the senior point of escalation for complex or non-standard documentation matters, applying judgment on whether mark-ups are acceptable, when to escalate to AQRM or legal, and how to manage counterparty positions that fall outside standard templates
• Build and maintain the relationship with AQRM and internal legal teams, acting as the consistent liaison point for risk and legal approval workflows, reducing delays and inconsistency across engagements, and engaging directly with counterparty legal teams to negotiate and resolve documentation positions on live transactions
• Drive process improvement and standardisation across the legal documentation function, developing and maintaining templates, trackers and standard operating procedures that create consistency and reduce turnaround time across the business
• Identify and implement improvements to documentation processes and turnaround times, working with deal teams to identify friction points, refine templates and standard operating procedures, and build a more consistent and scalable documentation function across Strategic Advisory
• Provide regular reporting to the Operations Lead on documentation volumes, turnaround times and service quality across active engagements, ensuring the function's commercial value is clearly tracked and evidenced for SLT.ensuring the function is delivering consistently and identifying areas for further improvement