Family Associate

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 Family team is highly regarded and known to be a go-to service for high net worth individuals, with our experienced and trusted family lawyers able to provide bespoke, strategic advice.

The team advise on a full spectrum of family law matters including; divorce, separation, cohabitation, pre and post nuptial agreements and children matters. Cases often involve advising on complex family finances with issues including overseas assets, valuation of family businesses and third party interests. 

We have an enviable client list including business owners, directors, senior managers, GPs, city traders and sporting /media personalities

We have a new opportunity for an Associate (1 yr PQE +) to join our team in Leeds. You will mainly be working alongside partner Peter Morris and assisting with a busy and varied caseload, with supervision. The family team operates as one national unit and works as a cohesive department to best serve the needs of our clients. On this basis, you may also have the opportunity to work with other family practitioners across the firm.  

We are looking for a candidate with experience of working on matrimonial finance cases. This will be a key element of the work you do along with other matters to include (private law) children cases, claims under TOLATA, Schedule 1 Children Act cases and pre and post-nuptial agreements. You will have some knowledge of court procedures and processes from your post-qualification experience, and have an interest in building business development skills. This is an exciting opportunity which offers genuine prospects for career progression and development. 

We know that the Covid 19 pandemic has changed expectations around where and how we work. We pride ourselves on having a culture and technology which lends itself well to flexible working. In this role, you would be required to spend time in the office and we think you would benefit from the supervision and support that would provide but in general, we expect this role to entail a split of office and home working.

We hold a strong belief in culture and community, and genuinely believe we have something different to offer you at Shoosmiths.  This is reflected in everything we say and do from our use of technology to enable agile working, to the team spirit and culture and our collaborative way of working across offices.

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.

To our agency partners - thank you for your ongoing support. Please note that we are currently looking to fill this role directly so do not require any assistance at present.

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.