Relationship Management Executive

Shoosmiths - UK Law Firm of the Year Winner at the Legal Week British Legal Awards 2015.

A leading UK law firm with a network of offices from the South Coast to Scotland, working together as one national team. An innovative practice and the first top 100 law firm to achieve “Gold Standard” Investors in People, our values and culture are not just words on our website but are the heartbeat of the firm. The lack of barriers between departments, a real lack of hierarchy, zero tolerance for arrogance and pomposity makes Shoosmiths a fantastic place to work.

The Business Development & Marketing team takes much care of the firm’s external reputation, employing a number of tools to optimise our profile in the market.  Growing profitable income from clients and targets is the key aim of the national Business Development team, and they do this in two main ways, by:

• supporting Relationships (with existing Clients, Targets and Intermediaries)
• developing a strong brand, profile and Reputation for Shoosmiths in the UK market and overseas.

Working as part of Business Development’s Relationship Management function, this role supports the management and development of the firm’s major relationships within the Managed Account Programme. You will provide excellent administrative and organisational support to the Client Relationship Manager and client team, specifically maintaining the account tools used to help manage the relationships and providing updates for Quarter-end.

You will be aligned to a Client Relationship Manager (CRM) and will provide relationship management assistance on the managed accounts on which they support. This will include:

• Scheduling account calls with the key legal advisers to discuss the client account. Attending the calls to take notes and transferring the actions to the account plan
• Produce and maintain key relationship development tools including the account plan, the quarterly relationship statement, team sheets, team relationship maps, specific management information/ reports, and service delivery dashboards
• Manage financial quarter ends by ensuring account plans are updated and Q-end updates are drafted for the CRM to send to the client teams
• Prepare secondment guides for any Legal Advisers going on secondment
• Support client teams on any ad hoc projects that arise from account management support (such as events, team socials, panel days), drawing on support from the Relationship Management Assistant (RMA) when needed

Relationship Hub

• Work closely with the other Relationship Management Executives (RME) & RMA to form part of the relationship hub responding to ad hoc queries and requests and replying to requests immediately to manage deadlines.
• Update the BD Report

Work closely with RMA providing training and support when required

Client service

• Work with the other RMEs to build relationships with Financial Planning & Analysis team working closely to ensure MI requests for the managed account programme are understood and managed efficiently by this team
• Train new members of the BD team on the client tool suite

• The ability to work using own initiative and without daily face to face supervision
• 3+ years’ experience in a similar role within professional services
• Excellent writing skills and experience of producing meeting notes
• Close attention to detail and information accuracy
• The ability to communicate effectively with a broad cross section of the firm, including colleagues in the business development team and other support departments.
• The ability to build collaborative relationships with key employees (legal advisers and support staff) who will provide key information on client accounts
• Ability to work as a team and work closely with the Relationship Management Executives ensuring work is supported during holidays and absences.
• Financial aptitude and familiarity with SAP/financial interrogation
• Research skills
• The role will involve significant task management so strong organisational skills are essential.
• Show accountability for own role and responsibilities and think proactively
• Working knowledge of Interaction, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, SAP & Interaction
• Friendly, approachable, confident with a can do approach to work and ability to work under pressure

Shoosmiths is a committed Equal Opportunities employer promoting equality of opportunity. This means that everyone who either applies to or works for the firm is treated equally, whatever their gender, age, ethnic origin, nationality, marital status, disability, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.