Responsibilities

• Provides legal support to Microsoft business and management teams in CEE Multi-Country on commercial legal issues, with a special focus on providing transactional support for licensing, distributing, and marketing of Microsoft’s online services, legal support relating to Microsoft’s partner ecosystem as well as Compliance issues.
• Serves as a key business partner and valued legal advisor to clients and colleagues by providing actionable advice on a wide range of issues, including data protection, public procurement, IP laws, and antitrust and competition regulations.
• Identifies and anticipates legal and other risks (e.g., geopolitical, country, reputational, etc.) in client's business, technology, and/or public policy, and develops creative solutions and alternatives to mitigate future risk.
• Manages relationships and develops partnerships with outside counsel; engages clients and collaborates with outside counsel to develop strategies and innovative solutions to address business issues and achieve business objectives.
• Ensures business is being conducted in a legally compliant manner and mitigates associated risks; advises and helps clients understand complex compliance issues; facilitates development of creative solutions to complex questions.
• Identifies and engages appropriate stakeholders in CELA and business to escalate issues and drive decisions.
• Support high-impact transactions outside of Multi-Country (strategic deals) as well as high impact projects across CEE, as the need arises, to meet the changing business environment and ensures the CEE Legal team is achieving commitments.
• Provides continuous feedback and evaluates processes for improvement; contributes to significant operational improvements (including timeliness, quality improvement, and cost reduction); develops and implements recommendations that increase efficiencies within work group and for the delivery of legal services to clients.
• Develops financial arrangements for outside counsel and vendor expenses; manages and prioritizes expenses to allocated budget; works within and manages budgets for projects.
• Models compliance and maintains confidentiality, attorney-client privilege, privacy, and the security of data.
• Partners well with another attorney, who supports Multi-Country, to deliver strong legal support as a team to the Multi-Country business teams.
• Leads and encourages collaboration within CELA, across internal groups, senior management, and clients to ensure a coordinated Legal and Corporate Affairs voice; provides guidance to frame issues in a clear and concise manner.
• Organizes and simplifies complex/multi-dimensional issues and recommends a clear course of action among alternatives.
• Takes an active role in industry or legal associations and external outreach initiatives, if and when appropriate, to build broader connections.
• Develops positive relationships with external and internal legal professionals, academics, customers, or partners in an effort to protect and advocate Microsoft's interests.

Qualifications

• Fully qualified lawyer, qualified to practice law in an EU jurisdiction.
• Extensive experience as an attorney (7+ years of relevant professional activity) with a passion for technology, preferably with a blend of experience at a law firm and in-house at a global company advising business clients.
• Significant experience and knowledge of commercial, privacy, antitrust, intellectual property laws, and related areas of law.
• Professional level written and spoken English.
• Enthusiastic "team player" who enjoys working in a multi-cultural and language environment  with the ability to work remotely across jurisdictions and provide clear legal advice to a diverse and dynamic sales organization based in multiple countries in CEE; capability and aptitude (and intuition) to spot legal issues and to provide legal counsel in foreign jurisdictions.
• A passion to empower clients within the bounds of ethical deal making and Microsoft’s Compliance policies; ability to provide clear counsel in Compliance related matters (such as Microsoft’s anti-corruption policy and similar policies) even when business pressure seems high.
• Flexible and analytical thinker able to quickly and accurately identify legal issues in a complex environment and to develop solutions by exercising confident judgment in ambiguous situations.
• Excellent oral and written communications skills in English and the ability to interface effectively with a variety of personalities across a large number of diverse international teams; additional language skills in one of the major CEE languages, particularly Russian, would be a plus.
• Keen business sense, ability to think strategically, results oriented, and desire to establish a trusted advisor relationship with business clients.
• Ability to work independently and efficiently, meet demanding deadlines, prioritize workflow and adjust to frequent workload fluctuations and changing demands

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