Regional Legal Lead Australia- NRR 3841

Legal professionals at Accenture deliver and coordinate legal, contract and commercial advice and counsel in support of Accenture and our clients' business objectives, working to manage and mitigate risk and ensure compliance with laws and company policies. Accenture offers a compelling mix of work and training opportunities, work environment and structure for career progression.

Job Summary:

You will support Avanade, a joint venture between Accenture and Microsoft, which is a leader in cloud services, AI, and sustainable industry solutions within the Microsoft ecosystem. Avanade focuses on mid-market clients with revenues ranging from $500 million to $5 billion, providing agile and high-value IT services. In this role, you will advise business leadership on legal risks and guide clients through contracting processes. You will drive growth by winning clients with creativity and innovative legal strategies, even in smaller deals. High agility and urgency are essential to manage a high volume of deals with shorter cycles and shifting priorities. You will make informed decisions and take calculated risks to propel the business forward. Your role will involve balancing ease of collaboration with the need to avoid undue risk to Avanade. You will also balance the aggressive expansion of Avanade's recurring platform business with providing customized, high-touch legal services for select clients who prefer traditional contract negotiations. As an independent advisor on legal and commercial risks, you will support Legal, Business, and Sales Leadership in shaping Avanade's mid-market strategies. We achieve this by being bold, fresh, passionate, and optimistic.

As Avanade's Regional Legal Lead for Australia, you will be responsible for leading, structuring, drafting, and negotiating complex client transactions in a dynamic corporate environment. This includes master services agreements, statements of work, service level agreements, licensing agreements, SaaS agreements, data transfer agreements, requests for proposals, and agreements involving cloud, security, artificial intelligence, systems integration, and agile development.

You will oversee the delivery of a variety of in-house legal services that support the business in achieving its goals while ensuring all areas of risk and compliance are managed effectively. You will collaborate with business management, business development executives, contract coordinators, internal business units, and other support functions. Additionally, you will manage a team to provide the necessary legal support to the business. 

As a member of the Legal team, you are expected to be a steward for Accenture and Avanade's business and people, and an exemplar of Accenture's core values.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead, shape, negotiate and close complex transactions.

• Work with finance, solution and commercial teams to identify and manage issues across the transaction and architect workable solutions.

• Work with deal teams to develop effective negotiating strategies.

• Form part of the negotiation team and lead the legal negotiations to conclude the contractual documents.

• Manage the escalation process for key legal and commercial risks.

• Prepare and provide briefings to legal and business approvers and other stakeholders.

• Counsel, guide, train and support other members of the legal team, including building the legal team's negotiation and core deal-shaping skills and acumen.

• Provide general legal advice and guidance to other business units including Operations, Human Resources, Finance, Sales and Marketing.

• Proactively manage and ensure all corporate compliance and company secretarial obligations are met for the business.

• Resolve issues and disputes, minimize potential for litigation and foster protection of Accenture and Avanade's reputation.

• Actively participate in global legal initiatives, develop and present training initiatives for the benefit of the global legal team and the business.

• Also as a member of the Avanade Australian Leadership Team, support the business to meet its goals; including strategising with Avanade executives regarding legal issues that affect the company.

• Stay abreast of developments affecting the company, its clients, and industries and synthesize the information to incorporate it into company's transactional practices

• Support, promote and implement Accenture and Avanade Legals initiatives.

Work Experience:

• Minimum 12+ years post-qualifying experience

• Admitted to legal practice in Australia

• Deep experience in technology and/or relevant complex commercial transactions that demonstrates a high degree of transactional responsibility

• Previous experience in a law firm or in a fast-paced corporate legal group for an IT services vendor would be of assistance in performing this role

• Understanding of and experience in Australian Government and State Government procurement desirable

• Australian Government security clearance also desirable

Knowledge and Skill Requirements:

• Demonstrated deep experience, specialised skills (including creative problem-solving and ability to be flexible, adaptable and open minded) and collaborative behaviors and mindsets to help shape, negotiate and take ownership of contracting for complex.

• Intellectual curiosity to continuously learn about new technologies and market trends and an ability to adapt to rapidly changing services and offerings including identifying and managing new risks as they arise

• Resilient under high pressure; able to balance between moving a deal forward and maintaining objectivity about the soundness of the deal and compliance with Accenture and Avanade principles and standards

• Ability to work both independently and as a member of a team to meet deadlines on short time frames and under pressure with the ability to set and adjust priorities quickly

• Superior communication skills, particularly with respect to active listening to and integrating information from various sources quickly and communicating legal advice in a practical form in a business context

• Demonstrated ability to lead the legal support for complex systems integration and technology transactions. Experience in digital, SaaS and cloud transactions is desirable

• Demonstrated business/commercial acumen including the ability to draft with precision, understand and negotiate complex pricing constructs

• Solutions orientated mindset with the ability to structure client transactions to be most advantageous from a legal and business perspective ("thinking outside the square")

• Strong negotiation skills with a proven ability to lead contract negotiations and to deal directly with senior client counsel and negotiating teams

• Strong executive presence and ability to present to, and engage as a credible peer with, both Accenture, Avanade and client senior management

• Innovative mindset and not constrained by how things are typically done. Demonstrated experience in developing and advancing relationships between and across legal and key business leaders for early ideation, innovation and deal shaping, providing strategic guidance, best practices and market relevant input in support of complex and transformational deals

• Ability to manage, counsel, guide, train and support other members of the legal team, and manage external legal support

• Ability to independently manage drafting, reviewing and negotiating transactional documents and correspondence over a large volume of transactions

• Demonstrated ability to effectively collaborate as part of a broader and diverse team

• Accenture is an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applications from all sections of society and does not discriminate on grounds of race, religion or belief, ethnic or national origin, disability, age, marital, domestic or civil partnership status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other basis as protected by applicable law.

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