Digital Lawyer Full Time

BBC
Job Band

Band: D

Location: London

Contract: Permanent

Job Purpose

We are looking for a Commercial Rights and Business Affairs Manager to join the BBC Commercial, Rights and Business Affairs (CRBA) initially in the Digital, Consumer Tech and Innovation legal and business affairs team. This is a permanent role based in London.

Commercial Rights and Business Affairs manages and connects the BBC’s intellectual property, strategic and business interests through expert negotiation, contracting and commercial deal-making. Commercial Rights and Business Affairs is a connector across the entire BBC Group, with teams embedded in divisions, genres, nations and regions.
Commercial Rights and Business Affairs makes sure rights are managed appropriately, deals are negotiated and agreed in the interests of the BBC, and business affairs are conducted legally and efficiently.
The Digital, Consumer Tech and Innovation legal and business affairs team within Commercial Rights and Business Affairs are subject matter legal and business experts on audience-facing digital products and consumer technology that drives those products. The team gives legal and business affairs support for BBC’s audience-facing digital products such as BBC iPlayer, Sounds, BBC News app and BBC Online, connected TV, BBC Bitesize and Children’s apps) and we help procure the technology that drives those consumer products. We also give legal and business affairs support for digital and technology innovation activities (experimentation, early prototype user testing, research and development, tech development collaborations and tech transfer licensing in areas such as AI, generative AI and new immersive and personalized formats for our audience). And we give legal and business affairs support for one of the world’s largest multimedia archives. The team guides teams across the BBC on digital, consumer technology and innovation projects.

This is an exciting opportunity at a pivotal time for the BBC. You will be instrumental in helping the BBC to experiment, innovate and keep BBC’s digital products competitive.

All CRBA colleagues are ‘agile workers’ and our expectation is that they will work an average of 2-3 day per week in BBC buildings.

Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities

As Commercial Rights and Business Affairs Manager, you will:
provide pro-active legal and business affairs support to BBC’s product, design, engineering and innovation teams on procurements, our digital product offerings and online audience engagement strategies, innovation initiatives and research and development.
advise internal stakeholders on key issues and risks in our commercial contracts and make sure that our agreements reflect our internal standards and strategy.
actively shape and develop legal commercial strategy to support our digital product offerings and innovation activities.
support and lead on team initiatives to develop a streamlined, efficient and scalable contracting process that gives the team flexibility and freedom to move quickly.

Knowledge, Skills, Training & Experience

We are looking for a junior to mid-level lawyer who has a passion for technology and innovation with demonstrated understanding of the UK digital market and transactional experience advising on tech, although we may also consider candidates with more or less experience. You must have the right to work in the UK.
In addition to the Job Description, to be successful in this role the following skills, knowledge, qualification and experience are essential:
o You’ll bring an understanding of digital and tech procurements and have sophisticated negotiating and contracting skills. You will be familiar with the BBC’s digital output. You will be comfortable working alongside the Senior Lawyer and independently on the end-to-end process of negotiating, drafting and producing a wide range of agreements in the areas of digital procurements, tech licensing, collaboration agreements and will understand and be able to apply related BBC policy and strategy. You will be adept at learning and understanding what matters to the business and using that to give practical and commercially focussed legal, rights and business affairs advice in easy to understand language. Added to this will be your fluency with relevant industry practices and legislation, including data protection law, consumer protection law and general contract law, and strong legal drafting capabilities.
o You are excited about digital, consumer tech and innovation, the businesses we support, the sector we are working in and the competitive, regulatory and policy factors that affect it.
o You have a collaborative, flexible and positive attitude, are willing to learn and help steer the team to work well together and get the job done. You are always ready to share knowledge with your colleagues and you will communicate ideas clearly and make sure everyone understands.
o You are happy to help others understand issues and risks and have self-awareness of when you need to get further information or advice and escalate.
o A legal qualification is essential (NQ-4 PQE+), as is proven experience of commercial deal making, digital and tech procurement and licensing of intellectual property in a media/broadcasting environment.

In addition to the Job Description, the following are desirable:
o a willingness to roll up your sleeves, clear blockers, think creatively.
o strong negotiating skills with the ability to balance deadlines and short-term contract requirements with the long-term vision and priorities of the business.
o familiarity with open source licensing.
o transactional experience involving AI/machine learning.
o experience of rights clearance and copyright licensing for digital and consumer tech.
o experience of procuring cloud based and digital services for public authorities.
o familiarity with emerging technologies, generative AI, data and personalisation, web games and apps, streaming video services and social media.

About the BBC

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC for different reasons and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.

We don’t focus simply on what we do – we also care how we do it. Our values and the way we behave are important to us. Please make sure you’ve read about our values and behaviours in the document attached below.

Diversity matters at the BBC. We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual’s unique contribution, enabling all of our employees to thrive and achieve their full potential.

We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to be part of the BBC – whether that’s to contribute to our programming or our wide range of non-production roles. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.

We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We will consider flexible working requests for all roles, unless operational requirements prevent otherwise.