Solicitor

We are a top 50 law firm with 195 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 many awards which reflect the quality and efforts of the firm, including most recently the Law Firm of the Year at the Lawyer Awards 2019.

Our Belfast commercial litigation team is expanding at an exciting rate and we have just moved premises to state of the art office space.  Our Litigation Team continues to grow and we are excited about adding further talent to our existing team.  We specialise in all forms of civil and commercial litigation with a particularly focus on banking.    

We currently act for an impressive number of High Street banks, financial institutions, FTSE 250 clients and large local corporations. We provide our clients a wide range of advisory and litigation services from pre-litigation right through to judgment and enforcement

We are seeking an ambitious and conscientious Solicitor (3 yr PQE upwards) to join our growing litigation team based in Belfast.  A detailed working knowledge of civil litigation and advocacy in both the County Court and the High Court is required for this role and additionally Chancery experience would be an advantage.  We can offer you a varied commercial litigation caseload with a particular focus on professional negligence, banking and real estate litigation with the opportunity for significant levels of client contact.

You will join a growing, vibrant, local litigation team which has the support of a large UK-wide infrastructure and you will be working within a comfortable and modern office environment in the heart of Belfast. We are ambitious and passionate about the work we do and we will encourage you to develop your own skills alongside our experienced partners and legal team. We pride ourselves on working collaboratively in relation to our litigation caseload and across our different office locations as required.

We hope you’ll share our commitment to putting the client at the centre of everything we do and work with us to deliver an exceptional service in a friendly, supportive environment.

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 in our internal framework.

Due to the nature of the work undertaken, confirmation of employment will be subject to a variety of checks which will be carried out once an offer of employment is accepted.  These checks will include

• employment references covering the last 5 years,
• proof of ID,
• proof of address covering the last 5 years,
• Personnel Vetting credit search (which will only highlight insolvency or County Court Judgments - should any adverse data show on the Personnel Vetting search then any offer of employment made will be withdrawn).
• Terrorism Check (against data supplied by the Bank of England); and
• DBS check previously known as a Criminal Records check.                   

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.