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.

Our national Employment team is widely respected for providing an excellent service, providing pragmatic and timely legal advice to its highly regarded client base. The team primarily works with employer clients along with some individual advisory work and a mix of both contentious and non-contentious matters. We also have specialists in advocacy, corporate work and business immigration.

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 employment lawyers who are looking for an alternative role which will be central in helping us to achieve our ambitions. In particular, the role is central to our ambition to grow both our internal expertise and systems, but also to help us drive our external brand forward.

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 employment 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 Division and across the firm.
• Research: to support the Employment team 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 employment partners and legal advisors. To include technical articles but also demonstrate thought leadership.
• Technical and other presentations: support with presentations to be given by other employment  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 Employment partners / legal advisors with the production and publication of articles on the Shoosmiths website.

Technical Legal Training

• Programme development: 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.