Director, UK Head of Legal eDiscovery & Data Operations Counsel

Job Description

Purpose of the role

Provides legal advice to the company on the discovery/disclosure component of Litigation matters and Regulatory requests globally, including litigations, disclosure orders, regulatory investigations, non-party document requests, and internal investigations. The Director, UK Head eDiscovery & Data Operations Counsel will serve as the senior member of the Legal eDiscovery Team in the UK, leading a team of eDiscovery Counsels, Managers, and Analysts who actively manage the Discovery/Disclosure portion of Legal matters and internal requests. 

Accountabilities

• Partnership with internal stakeholders, outside counsel and eDiscovery suppliers to formulate appropriate Discovery/Disclosure strategy on Barclays matters, ensuring best practices are implemented with an eye to advocacy, reduction of risk and management of costs.
• Partner with outside counsel to ensure that the eDiscovery component of each Barclays matter is conducted in a manner consistent with Barclays eDiscovery Target Operating Model and work to implement team initiatives globally. 
• Management of the UK eDiscovery portfolio of matters (inclusive of Crown Dependencies, EME, & APAC), including overseeing of identification and preservation of relevant data sources, retrieval, search, processing of data, analysis/ review of data for production of data in response to legal or regulatory requests as well as internal investigations and proactive compliance matters.
• Management of Disposal Hold and Defensible Disposal processes as well as eDiscovery activities in compliance with records and data management standards, including those related to data protection and data retention.
• Developing and delivering training programmes to educate employees, including Legal colleagues, on legal and regulatory requirements related to eDiscovery and disposal hold processes.
• Relationship management with eDiscovery vendors, including selecting and retaining vendors, negotiating contracts, and ensuring that vendors provide high-quality eDiscovery services. This includes security and privacy requirements.
• Development and implementation of eDiscovery and disposal hold policies and procedures, including drafting documentation and opinions related to disposal hold and defensible disposal.
• Serve as eDiscovery & Legal representative on strategic bank-wide initiatives and projects to reduce cost and risk associated with the use of electronic data.
• Collaboration and/or consultation with internal and/or external parties to leverage technology to increase efficiency during the retrieval process for new and existing e-comms data sources.
• Provides strategic oversight of onboarding new data and communication sources into compliant archives, driving key decisions and risk trade-offs to ensure defensible eDiscovery outcomes and scalable governance across evolving platforms.
• Provides senior oversight of information governance across enterprise forums, contributing to the development of policies, standards, and control frameworks, and ensuring that data management practices meet legal, regulatory, and operational compliance obligations.
• Management and implementation of data retrieval for UK team according to standard operational procedures for centralised data sources as well as preservation processes.
• Liaise and maintain relationships with Internal Legal Stakeholders, including the Head of Litigation, Investigations, and Enforcement, EME, UK Head of Data Legal, EIP Legal leads, and others as the senior member of eDiscovery in EME.

Director Expectations

• To manage a business function, providing significant input to function wide strategic initiatives. Contribute to and influence policy and procedures for the function and plan, manage and consult on multiple complex and critical strategic projects, which may be business wide..
• They manage the direction of a large team or sub-function, leading other people managers and embedding a performance culture aligned to the values of the business. Or for an individual contributor, they lead organisation wide projects and act as deep technical expert and thought leader, identifying new ways of working and collaborating cross functionally. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions..
• Provide expert advice to senior functional management and committees to influence decisions made outside of own function, offering significant input to function wide strategic initiatives.
• Manage, coordinate and enable resourcing, budgeting and policy creation for a significant sub-function.
• Escalates breaches of policies / procedure appropriately.
• Foster and guide compliance, ensure regulations are observed that relevant processes in place to facilitate adherence.
• Focus on the external environment, regulators, or advocacy groups to both monitor and influence on behalf of Barclays, when appropriate.
• Demonstrate extensive knowledge of how the function integrates with the business division / Group to achieve the overall business objectives.
• Maintain broad and comprehensive knowledge of industry theories and practices within own discipline alongside up-to-date relevant sector / functional knowledge, and insight into external market developments / initiatives.
• Use interpretative thinking and advanced analytical skills to solve problems and design solutions in often complex/ sensitive situations.
• Exercise management authority to make significant decisions and certain strategic decisions or recommendations within own area.
• Negotiate with and influence stakeholders at a senior level both internally and externally.
• Act as principal contact point for key clients and counterparts in other functions/ businesses divisions.
• Mandated as a spokesperson for the function and business division.

All Senior Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.

Barclays have an excellent opportunity for a Director, Head of eDiscovery & Data Operations Counsel to join our Global Legal Team. This is a permanent role based in London.

Job Summary

To manage eDiscovery matters and drive eDiscovery strategy on matters with internal and external stakeholders, advising legal and other teams on challenges related to identification, preservation, retrieval, culling, analysis and use of data. Provide comprehensive technical expertise for data preservation, retrieval and culling exercises bank wide. Also responsible for supplier management of eDiscovery vendors, management of external eDiscovery spend by vendors and law firms, and relationship management of eDiscovery suppliers (including maintenance of data security and privacy) and collaboration cross functionally on various bank-wide initiatives that impact eDiscovery processes as well as ensuring that eDiscovery activities are aligned with the bank's overall goals and objectives. 

Required Skills

• Law degree with a minimum 10 years' experience in a litigation setting.
• UK qualified or equivalent legal qualification.
• Advanced knowledge of litigation processes and rules pertaining to eDiscovery and have a demonstrated ability to act creatively and decisively in resolving eDiscovery challenges. 
• 6+ years' experience with a proven track record of advising lawyers on eDiscovery strategy—e.g. making recommendations as to the scope of matters, best practices regarding collection of data, and the workflow to be employed to review documents—and experience managing the eDiscovery component of complex cases.
• 7+ years' experience providing legal analysis on issues of burden, proportionality, and eDiscovery, as well as advanced knowledge of the market for eDiscovery services and best practices for management of discovery projects. 
• 7+ years' demonstrated experience working with eDiscovery vendors and using eDiscovery review platforms.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, possessing the ability to communicate equally with both technical experts and attorneys who lack technical background.