Waters Corporation, the world’s leading specialty measurement company, has exclusively retained Florit Legal to help it appoint an In-house Commercial Counsel for its Wilmslow based legal team.

The Organisation

Waters Corporation (NYSE: WAT), the world’s leading specialty measurement company, has pioneered chromatography, mass spectrometry and thermal analysis innovations serving the life, materials, and food sciences for more than 60 years.

With more than 7,000 employees worldwide, Waters operates directly in 35 countries, including 15 manufacturing facilities, with products available in more than 100 countries.

The team focuses on creating business advantages for laboratory-dependent organizations to enable significant advancement in healthcare delivery, environmental management, food safety, and water quality.

The Opportunity

An opportunity has been created for a Commercial Counsel to join its global Legal team. This full-time role reports to the Director, Senior Legal Counsel and is based at Waters’ state of the art facility in Wilmslow, UK.

As Commercial Counsel, you will collaborate internationally with legal colleagues and business stakeholders around the world, supporting all business and corporate functions across the company and be responsible for providing high-quality and timely advice and guidance on a wide range of commercial legal matters. Some of these will include:

• Drafting, negotiating and managing a wide range of commercial agreements with customers, partners, and suppliers, often with an international element and with a focus on technology, including supply of goods and services, distribution and agency, R&D, software licensing, SaaS, and marketing.
• Provide practical, commercially astute advice on day-to-day business issues requiring legal support, integrating legal risk management with Waters’ business objectives.
  Independently manage multiple tasks with tight deadlines, while managing the expectations of internal and external stakeholders.
• Collaborate with other members of Waters’ global legal team on longer-term projects and transactional matters, with guidance and supervision depending on the complexity of each matter.
• Support the continuous improvement of the global legal team’s operational processes, including the drafting of template agreements and playbooks.

The Candidate

To be considered for the role:

• You must be a UK qualified solicitor with at least 2 years practical experience of English law, gained at either a national law firm or an in-house legal team.
• Your experience can come from a range of the mainstream commercial practice areas, such as commercial contracts, technology, intellectual property, corporate or commercial litigation.
• Any EMEA or wider international experience and/or experience in the life, materials, or food science markets is beneficial but not required.
• Candidates with SaaS or competition law experience would be highly attractive.

To succeed, the appointee will be someone who:

• Has strong communication skills, capable of dealing with a wide range of people and cultures, with a proven ability to establish a high degree of credibility, respect and trust at all levels Demonstrates commercial awareness and ability to prioritise between matters of varying levels of operational and/or strategic importance.
• Ability to solve problems independently and to deliver accurate, high-quality, commercially astute work product.
• Effective time-planning and organisational skills to prioritise key areas of responsibility, tasks and projects. 
• Acts as a true company owner to advance the overall interests of Waters with focus, urgency and accountability.

Key Attractions

• Joining a pioneering business, with an innovative workforce that aren’t afraid to take risks to transform the world of human health and well-being.
• High levels of responsibility, visibility, and inclusion. Sound legal advice will underpin all areas internationally and the UK.
• Strong career development prospects.
• Very modern and relaxed working environment.

For a confidential discussion about this role please get in touch with Waters’ exclusively retained consultant, Andy Balmer.