Senior 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.

The CMI division is made up of leading advisers for creative, innovative and brand-focused businesses, offering a deep understanding of the industry sectors in which clients operate combined with real expertise across a wide range of legal services.

CMI’s lawyers have decades of experience both within the creative industries and as legal advisers with in depth knowledge and experience of the many sectors that make up the creative world, including advertising and marketing, entertainment and media, fashion, hospitality, technology, retail and sports.

The EIR Division is one of the leading employment law practices in the UK. Consistently top ranked by independent legal directories, we have more recognised experts in employment than any other UK firm. 

The team’s work comprises a mix of contentious and non-contentious matters for a diverse range of clients.  Our lawyers undertake a significant amount of business development, including giving seminars, producing Lewis Silkin branded publications and driving client relationships.  International advice is central to our practice and we are members of the Ius Laboris international alliance of employment lawyers. 

You will form part of the Data & Privacy team, which is an effective and cohesive cross firm, cross industry and cross sector team making up its own independent and autonomous Legal Practice Group within the firm (it sits between EIR and CMI), comprising both contentious and non-contentious lawyers from both divisions. Depending on your skills and experience your particular focus could be on issues arising in a workplace context or a commercial context but we would expect you to advise on both and to be involved in contentious and non-contentious work.

The Data & Privacy team is made up of two partners, seven associates and two paralegals.  The team is an energetic, informal and sociable group with a very impressive client base, predominantly in the marketing, publishing, gig economy, media, retail, sport and professional services sectors. 

Typical work types include (but limited to):

• Privacy notice reviews, cookie consent mechanism reviews and workplace data protection policies and contracts reviews;
• DPA reviews ranging from simple processing agreements to complex media buying and adtech related agreement;
• Ad hoc day to day GDPR, PECR and FOIA queries in both a workplace and commercial content;
• Advising on client marketing strategies;
• Dealing data breaches;
• Dealing with litgation related to data & privacy complaints;
• Assisting with data subject rights requests;
• GDPR audit work including data mapping; and
• Provision of tactical advice on international issues and data and privacy governance strategies.

In addition to the above, the team has been part of a number of high profile regulatory investigations as well been involved in a number of contentious and litigious data & privacy matters, both of which are both fast-growing areas of our practice.   

Candidate profile

We are looking for a Senior Associate to join our Data & Privacy Group (with dotted line to Dispute Resolution Group) to take a material role in:

1. Building capacity with D&PG for data litigation (including breach litigation),
2. Building BD and brand re D&PG litigation market presence (including reaching out to contacts in insurance world, cyber security world etc.)
3. Executing any litigation (with support of D&PG); and
4. PARTIAL (i.e. 10-20 % work max.) supporting as necessary DRG with general day to day litigation.

You should ideally have significant data litigation experience in a medium or large private practice with experience of law firm Insurance litigation, Cyber security litigation, General commercial litigation with data as a specialist interest and/or Data and privacy litigation.

You should have excellent drafting, analytical and communication skills and be able to run matters with appropriate supervision. As well as and be able to demonstrate a collaborative “team” player approach and ability to work across the firm’s two divisions. You will report to a number of individual partners within the firm in respect of individual assignments.

Academic rigour is important, as is technical legal excellence, but the firm will place the greatest importance on your willingness to learn about data & privacy and ability to contribute positively to the growth of the practice. We welcome candidates who are able to display true commerciality. 

You will also be expected to support the team’s marketing activities and contribute to the production of written material such as client guides, and prepare and deliver talks and seminars. You should be very keen to engage in Business Development and seek out opportunities to assist in building this growing part of our practice.

Knowledge of any of the firm’s sector focuses in advertising and marketing, entertainment and media, fashion, hospitality, technology, retail, professional services and sports would be an advantage. 

Training 

The Data & Privacy team’s training programme includes seminars and workshops given by external speakers and by our own internal experts.  We have dedicated Practice Development Lawyers who are responsible for maintaining know-how and precedents across the team, as well as the Lewis Silkin Business School which provides our Associates with the tools and skills necessary to develop. 

The successful candidates will be allocated a Career Development Partner (CDP) who will have an overview of their long-term career aspirations and progression.  We have an excellent track-record of developing our Associates and generating opportunities for Partnership.  Organic growth and a strong team culture is at the heart of our success.  

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.