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 specialist private client team is experienced in managing and implementing the strategies required to safeguard our clients' personal wealth and business assets. They are renowned for providing the specialist knowledge needed for even the most sensitive of cases. Our expertise ranges from wills, estate planning and probate matters, inheritance tax and succession planning to legal advice concerning mental capacity issues, dealing with the Court of Protection and charity law matters. In your private affairs doubtless you expect solutions that combine expertise, diligence and imagination to protect your assets and safeguard your wealth. Thoughtful and informed planning as well as professionally executed strategies are the hallmarks of the service provided by Shoosmiths' Wealth Protection Team. Their proven expertise in protecting assets and safeguarding wealth for high net worth private individuals ranges from advising salaried professionals and high profile business leaders to stars of stage and screen and National Lottery winners.

We are looking for a Professional Support Lawyer (PSL) to join our Wealth Protection team.  Our Wealth Protection department is part of the Personal Advisory Division within Shoosmiths and offers advice to High Net Worth clients and also has specialist teams dealing with Court of Protection work; Tax & Trusts and Disputed Wills & Trusts.  This is an exciting time to be joining a growing team which now has 26 legal advisers, spread over a number of offices, including:  Milton Keynes, Birmingham, Reading and Solent and a small number of people in Manchester and Leeds.

This is a newly-created role, which means that you have the opportunity to really make your mark. No two days will be the same and in this role, you be involved in the creation and maintenance of precedents (principally non-contentious), creating and delivering training sessions, know-how, know-how materials as well as the creation of external articles for the department.   In light of this, we are ideally looking for someone who has prior experience working as a PSL and/or previous track record of practicing in this area.

We consider this to be a level 2 competency.

• Creating and updating existing precedents as well as the creation of Shoosmiths’ own precedents from scratch, or by adapting documents that have been used in recent matters
• Implementing and delivering regular departmental training
• Ensure that the precedents are standardised with the wider Shoosmiths' Personal Advisory Group precedents
• Preparing guidance notes for legal advisers to refer to when using the new Shoosmiths’ precedents
• Assisting with the induction and training of new joiners to the team
• Delivering regular updates on new developments and potential shifts in procedure
• Prepare know-how materials and checklists for the division
• Lead and assist with projects that may impact the Wealth Protection team and the entire Personal Advisory Division.
• Creation of articles for Shoosmiths’ intranet page, website or other publications
• Conducting research on key or new areas of law to support the wider team

• Prior experience of assisting or working within a Wealth Protection or Private Client team with precedent creation and know-how is preferred, but Wealth Protection lawyers looking to make that move will also be considered
• Prior experience of creating and delivering training sessions
• Proven experience to effectively communicate and collaborate with a diverse range of people and job functions
• The ability to work as part of a team, but also able to be self-motivated and able to work on own initiative.

This role may, on occasion, require flexible working hours, and travel throughout the UK.

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.  

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.