Associate

Lewis Silkin works with leading businesses to protect and enhance their most important assets - their ideas, their people, their brand and their future. We call it: Ideas. People. Possibilities.

With offices in London, Oxford, Cardiff, Belfast, Dublin and Hong Kong, we are recognised by clients and industry alike as being distinct for our unique culture, market-leading practice areas, sector focused approach and for providing solutions to complex, multijurisdictional business challenges, with a pragmatic and human touch. We have two things at our core: people — both ours and our clients’— and a focus on creative, tech and innovative businesses.

Our culture is encapsulated by an ethos of bravery and kindness, guided by our values of Integrity, Clarity, Unity and Excellence (our ‘I-CUE’). We aim to provide a supportive environment for our people, clients and wider community and embrace diversity & inclusion, ensuring people are able to bring their full selves to work.

You will form part of the Commercial team, which deals with a wide range of non-contentious commercial, technology, e-commerce, privacy, consumer, IP, advertising, marketing and media law.   Your primary focus would be on this type of work.  It will be largely transactional work with some advisory work too.

The Commercial team is based in London and, while you will be encouraged to spend time in the London office (especially initially), the role will be primarily Cardiff based.  The Commercial team is growing and is keen to support the growth of its Cardiff office.  Currently, our Cardiff office has employment, real estate, corporate and (junior) data privacy resource.  Growing commercial work from the Cardiff office is a core part of the strategic vision of the Commercial team and firm.  Members of the London team will increasingly be encouraged to spend time in the Cardiff office to help its growth and to support you. You will be well supported by the Partners and other fee earners in the Cardiff office.

The team is a fantastic, energetic and sociable group with an extremely impressive and varied client base, predominantly in the retail, technology, advertising and marketing, media, professional services, entertainment and sport sectors.

You will work with most of the partners within the team.  You will be expected be the lead associate on transactions and to manage junior and associates trainees working with you.  You would have partner supervision to varying degrees (depending on the matter) but should be comfortable in leading on, and negotiating, transactional work.  Your workload will be predominantly transaction led with some advisory work, e.g. on consumer and data privacy. 

The successful individual will ideally be 4-7 years’ PQE with strong technical legal skills, excellent drafting skills and extensive experience of non-contentious commercial contracts, technology
e-commerce, and ideally some experience in advertising and marketing contracts, consumer and data law. 

You should have substantial experience from working in a medium or large private practice law firm or a niche commercial/technology/data practice.

The role will include work in the following areas drafting, negotiating and advising on a range of commercial contracts, including:

• services agreements (including client/agency agreements between brand owners and marcomms agencies);

• distribution/agency agreements;

• franchise/sponsorship agreements;

• media buying and publishing agreements;

• outsourcing agreements;

• R&D agreements;

• software development, licensing and escrow agreements;

• SaaS and other cloud based agreements;

• website and app development, back-end services, hosting and support agreements;

• website/app terms and conditions including privacy policies;

• general e-commerce agreements;

• ad-tech contracts;

• consultancy agreements and terms and conditions of sale and purchase (B to B and B to C).

• advising clients on legal, regulatory and commercial issues in the fields of technology, and e-commerce (in particular cross border data flows and data protection issues);
• in the context of corporate transactional work

You should also have excellent analytical and communication skills and be comfortable running your own files with appropriate supervision (where required).

You should be ambitious, proactive, a self-starter, a good networker and keen to develop new business.

The team markets actively in its core sectors  and  you will be expected to contribute to the production of written material such as client guides, client training and to the giving of talks and seminars, so should be very keen to engage in Business Development.

Excellent prospects exist.

IT SKILLS REQUIRED:

• Proficient IT skills - Office 365, Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Skype for Business, DocsCorp PDF Docs, Word Compare (DocsCorp CompareDocs), Document Management System (Netdocs), although full in house training will be provided.

• Time recording (Intapp TIME)

EDUCATIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED:

• Qualified UK lawyer with a current UK practising certificate.

• Excellent academics.

The successful individual will be a key part of a hard-working, friendly and supportive team; therefore, the ideal candidate will be a strong team player and have experience working in a high performing and collaborative environment.

This passionate team continues to go from strength to strength and has a particular focus on growing its technology and commercial offering.  We are looking for a dedicated team player, who has a good use of initiative and who also has a sense of fun!

At Lewis Silkin our ethos is simple. We strive to do the best for our clients, our people and the communities in which we operate. We recognise that an inclusive workplace allows for all kinds of ideas and thoughts, a variety of points of view that can trigger discussions or deliver innovative results, and a wide range of versatile skills and expertise. We are proud of the diversity within Lewis Silkin and of our culture that allows people to be themselves at work, ensuring we provide the best possible service to our clients. We are committed to finding the right person for this role and are open to discussing flexible working patterns and office location.

No agencies please.

Lewis Silkin is an equal opportunities employer.