Professional Support Lawyer

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 Advisory Division is one of Shoosmiths’ 4 operational Divisions.  The Division provides commercial legal advice and services to the firm’s clients, primarily supporting their trading and related activities.  The Division is currently budgeted to turnover in excess of £46m in fee income.

The Division consists of 4 Departments:

• Commercial
• Employment
• Pensions
• Risk & Litigation Services

The Divisions client’s consist predominantly of medium to large corporates and financial institutions (many of whom are well known household names) and other entities including public bodies, SME’s, charities and pension fund trustees. Occasionally the Division will act for individuals in as far as the mandate relates to the individuals employment status and / or commercial activity.

Within Business Advisory our national Commercial Group is ranked Tier 1 and recognised as one of the most energetic and innovative Commercial practices in the UK.  The team currently consists of 70 lawyers (with further growth ambition) focused on six key service lines:

• Technology, Media & Telecoms
• Intellectual Property
• Financial Services
• Commercial Contracts
• Privacy & Data
• Capital Projects & Infrastructure

With a loyal and ever increasing client base comprising FTSE Plcs, global household names and innovative start-ups, we are keen to speak with accomplished Commercial lawyers who are looking for an alternative role which will be central in helping us to achieve our ambitions.

The successful candidate will work within a newly created small team of Professional Support Lawyers supporting the Division’s activities with particular emphasis on providing specialist commercial support to the Commercial Department.

Business Advisory Projects

As part of a team of 3 PSL’s to lead on Division wide projects including:

• Compliance – support the Divisional Head in overseeing and maintaining the Divisional compliance framework.
• Business Advisory Intranet: to support the maintenance and development of the intranet site to keep it up-to-date with all internal reports, guidance notes, protocols and other information as required.
• Process enhancement – support the development and implementation of IS and other process / efficiency enhancement project roll outs across the Division.
• Prepare and issue monthly legal advisor update / briefings.
• Knowledge Management – working with the national Head of Knowledge Management and firm wide PSL group support the development and implementation of the national knowledge management and training strategy. 

Knowledge Management

• Know How: to support the development of the internal intranet site including knowledge bank.
• Precedents:  To support the production of a new and maintaining commercial precedents and know how notes. 
• Library: to support the maintenance and development of both the online and hard copy library and other reference materials as required.
• To deal with and respond to ad hoc enquiries received from across the Practice Group and across the firm.
• Research: to support the Commercial Group by being able to answer/respond to specific legal queries on client matters, ranging from straightforward questions through to larger more complicated research tasks.

Business Development

• Article production: write articles for production on own account by the PSL team and with/for other Commercial partners and legal advisors.
• Technical and other presentations: support with presentations to be given by other Commercial partners / legal advisors either internally or externally
• Client bulletins and client training; working with relevant colleagues to prepare client bulletins and to provide advice on the content of and deliver client training programmes.
• Website:  to support the Commercial Group partners / legal advisors with the production and publication of articles on the Shoosmiths website.

Technical Legal Training

• Programme development:  to work with the Commercial Group to support and improve the current training programme.
• Programme delivery: to lead and deliver elements of the training programme as part of the PSL team (including but not limited to the Quarterly Legal Updates, the Developing Lawyer Programme and such other training as required).
• Inductions:  to support the delivery of the legal Advisor induction programme.
• Annual Training Weekend:  to support in the planning and delivery of the annual national Business Advisory training weekend.

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.