Associate/Senior Associate

We are a top 50 law firm with 194 partners and around 1,700 staff in total.  We have 13 locations in the UK and a significant international network.  Our clients include some of the largest financial, automotive, telecoms and technology businesses in the UK.

We champion diversity and inclusion, and our mission is to attract and nurture a diverse group of people and to create an environment and culture that is genuinely inclusive, in which every member of staff feels valued for their contribution.  We have been awarded Gold status in the Law Society Diversity and Inclusion Charter in recognition of our commitment to this.  We were also the first major law firm to achieve “Gold Standard” Investors in People.

We have received numerous accolades which reflect the quality and efforts of the firm, most recently we were named National Law firm of the year at The Lawyer Awards 2019.

Our national Employment team is widely respected for providing an excellent service, offering pragmatic and timely legal advice to its highly regarded client base.

We work differently here and pride ourselves on our commercial edge. We understand how our clients operate – partnering with them to drive improvement and add value in many ways across their business – not just by delivering legal advice.

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.

We operate as a single team across our London and Thames Valley offices which allows us to resource up or down or call upon various specialisms as the situation may require whilst at the same time having the ability to engage the larger national employment team so as to ensure adequate coverage and maintain client service levels.

The Partners leading our team in London and the Thames Valley are Tier 1 ranked and work for a variety of blue chip clients and/or household names.   We operate in a collegiate manner and are supportive of flexible working practices across the two offices.

With an exciting agenda for growth in mind, we are looking for talented, passionate employment lawyers from 5 yr PQE upwards to join our team. Your role would cover London and/or the Thames Valley office and some home-working would also be considered for the right candidate.

We enjoy a varied case load across these 2 locations and have an impressive track record in ET and EAT cases. Recent hires to the London team have unlocked great opportunities for corporate support work as well as stand-alone employment work and we have continuing scope to develop our practice further.

We want to hear from you if you’d like to be part of a busy, thriving team with national and international reach. We are ideally looking for an employment generalist with a good mix of contentious and advisory experience. We will be impressed by ambitious lawyers with strong client relationships and a desire to work within a collaborative team to make their mark.   

Tell us what you’re looking for in a move. Do you want more responsibility or a greater level or autonomy? Do you want a say in the type of work you do and more client contact? Do you want a clear path to promotion? We really think we have something different to offer you here and would value the chance to meet you and discuss further if you’re interested in joining us.

We are a values-driven business – our values are at the core of the firm and we evaluate how we behave in accordance with these values through a competency framework. This role is considered to be at competency level 2 or 3 in our internal framework.

If you have questions for us before you apply – please feel free to contact Rachel Charlton in our recruitment team on Rachel.charlton@shoosmiths.co.uk or 03700 86 5809.

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.