Associate Counsel

At American Express, our culture is built on a 175-year history of innovation, shared values and Leadership Behaviors, and an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities, and colleagues. As part of Team Amex, you'll experience this powerful backing with comprehensive support for your holistic well-being and many opportunities to learn new skills, develop as a leader, and grow your career.

Here, your voice and ideas matter, your work makes an impact, and together, you will help us define the future of American Express.

How will you make an impact in this role?

We're looking for an energetic, creative and pragmatic junior lawyer or paralegal to join our Sydney legal team. This role is many and varied, and will suit any junior lawyer or paralegal with broad general commercial experience ideally with some financial services practice thrown in. Above all, we need a self-starter who is intellectually curious, collaborative and can be relied upon to get the job done

Payments and Financial services are going through a period of intense disruption. We need savvy colleagues who can help our business teams stay in front of the commercial, legal and regulatory issues impacting American Express.

What does the job look like?

This is a generalist junior lawyer/paralegal role with the opportunity to support multiple parts of American Express. Initially however, the focus will be on our consumer, payments and merchant teams. One of the great things about working in our team, is that you'll get to try your hand at supporting many different parts of our business and multiple areas of law. We like people who put their hand up

Type of work that you will be required to do in this role:

• Drafting, reviewing and updating a range of terms and conditions, customer notices/communications, privacy statements, terms of use.
• Drafting and updating a range of commercial contract templates (with support from senior lawyers).
• Reviewing, drafting and advising on commercial contracts (with support from senior lawyers) – with a focus on payments agreements, card issuing agreements, and sponsorship and marketing agreements.
• Support senior lawyers in the development of general legal and regulatory advice across a range of commercial matters.
• Monitoring and researching legal and regulatory changes that impact American Express and assisting with strategies to deal with them.
• Supporting the development of training for lawyers and developing tools and guidance to help business colleagues make sense of the legal and regulatory world around them.

Who are you?

You are you, and that's how we like it.  But it's also important that you have some of the following:

Must Haves

• Experienced paralegal or junior lawyer with at least 1-2 years PQE (including current Practising Certificate)
• Some commercial contract drafting experience
• Some relevant regulatory experience in any of consumer credit, payments, financial products, privacy or AML/KYC
• Strong communication skills, both written and verbal (i.e. the ability to communicate complex things in a concise way and provide clear choices)
• Good commercial judgment
• Sufficient nous to thrive in areas where you have limited or no experience
• Great collaboration skills with demonstrated ability to work cooperatively and efficiently
• Highest standards of ethics and professional integrity

Good to Haves

• Experience working in-house or private practice
• Some exposure to big commercial deals
• Experience managing a diverse workload with multiple stakeholders
• Interest in technology, payments, fintech, blockchain, open banking, big data and the legal/regulatory issues related to them

If this sounds like something you are interested drop us your CV.

Don't sell yourself short - it's ok if you don't tick all of our boxes, we value people who give things a go

We back you with benefits that support your holistic well-being so you can be and deliver your best. This means caring for you and your loved ones' physical, financial, and mental health, as well as providing the flexibility you need to thrive personally and professionally:

• Competitive base salaries 

• Flexible working model with hybrid, onsite or virtual arrangements depending on role and business need 

• Free and confidential counseling support through our Healthy Minds program 
• Career development and training opportunities

Offer of employment with American Express is conditioned upon the successful completion of a background verification check, subject to applicable laws and regulations.