Senior Lawyer - Programme Legal Advice

Job Information

Salary: £90,000 to £110,000 depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.
Contract: Permanent
Location: London Broadcasting House (Hybrid working)

We’re happy to discuss flexible working. Please indicate your choice under the flexible working question in the application. There is no obligation to raise this at the application stage but if you wish to do so, you are welcome to. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.

Excellent career progression – the BBC offers great opportunities for employees to seek new challenges and work in different areas of the organisation.
Unrivalled training and development opportunities – our in-house Academy hosts a wide range of internal and external courses and certification.
Benefits - We offer a competitive salary package, and 26 days annual leave (1 of which is a corporation day) with the option to buy an extra 5 days, a defined pension scheme and discounted dental, health care, gym and much more.

Job Introduction

We’re recruiting two Programme Legal Advice Senior Lawyersto join our Programme Legal Advice team. These are permanent roles based in London with some flexibility, i.e. hybrid working.

We advise journalists and programme makers working on a wide range of programmes and other content from news and current affairs to drama and entertainment. You will be part of a small team of lawyers that supports programmes like Panorama, Newsnight and Have I Got News For You in getting to air.

The BBC Legal Division is responsible for providing legal advice and assistance across the BBC and for developing and implementing the BBC’s legal strategy. The Legal Division is led by the BBC’s General Counsel. It is made up of the following departments: General Counsel's Office, Information Rights, Intellectual Property, Employment, Litigation, Programme Legal Advice, Commercial and Engineering and Competition and Regulatory Law.

Our overall structure is similar to that found in private practice firms and we provide advice and support on a wide range of diverse matters. Whilst this means the work can be challenging and fast-paced at times, we are open to discussing agile ways of working to support our staff, where appropriate and in line with our flexible working policies.

Main Responsibilities

As a Programme Legal Advice Senior Lawyer reporting to the Legal Director for Programme Legal Advice, you will provide pre-transmission legal advice on defamation, contempt, privacy and other aspects of media law to journalists and content producers on TV, radio and online You will also advise senior management on legal risks associated with their output.

You will be proactive in supporting the BBC’s journalism, for example by challenging reporting restrictions where appropriate or applying to courts and other bodies in order to report information. You will also develop and present media law training for clients and help with the dissemination of know-how.

You will keep closely across legal and regulatory developments affecting the BBC’s journalism, preparing and coordinating submissions where appropriate on areas of law or policy that affect the BBC.

You will also participate in the provision of advice to news programmes 24/7. This will involve being on call out of office hours.

Are you the right candidate?

To be successful in this role, you will need substantial experience in defamation, contempt, privacy and associated issues and of dealing with journalists and/or programme makers, including providing pre-transmission or pre-publication advice on complex and sensitive news and current affairs investigations.

You will be comfortable providing advice on the above areas of law and presenting legal talks and seminars. You will also possess sound judgment, strong analytical and interpersonal skills and the ability to work to tight deadlines, often under pressure.

In addition, you will have experience of building relationships across a range of people and within a team. You'll have excellent written and oral communication skills and experience of advising clients directly, in person, in phone and video calls and in writing. Knowledge of the structure, objectives and values of the BBC and broadcasting issues generally is desirable. A familiarity with undertaking a variety of legal research is essential.

Why the BBC?

There is no other organisation like the BBC.

As the world’s largest and longest-standing public service broadcaster, we have a unique role that informs culture and democracy in the UK and overseas.

Attracting and retaining the very best talent is at the heart of delivering for our audiences. We are looking for people who are excited to help us build a culture that is creative, inclusive and full of opportunity, regardless of gender, disability, gender reassignment, race, sexual orientation, pregnancy or maternity, marital or civil partnership, age, religion or belief.

We believe in providing equal opportunity and treatment for everyone and are proud to be a Disability Confident employer. Please do contact us if you need to talk through any support or reasonable adjustments, such as subtitles over zoom, extra time, or whatever will meet your needs at [email protected].

See the BBC diversity plan in full.

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.