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 Corporate team (which is part of the CMI division) consists of 11 partners, 10 associates, 1 trainee, 1 paralegal, 1 professional development lawyer and a high quality secretarial and word processing support team. The team operates as one combined team based in the London and Cardiff offices.  It is Tier 1 ranked by Legal 500 and Band 2 ranked by Chambers & Partners in the London market and is expanding in both Cardiff and London.

The range of work we carry out includes mergers and acquisitions, debt funding and all aspects of corporate finance from early investment to exit transactions, as well as corporate advisory work and tax and employee incentives advice.

Our clients are interesting and diverse and range from founders and owner-managed entrepreneurial businesses, to investors and funders, through to large businesses including companies listed in the UK and overseas.  

We act for many of the world’s leading marketing communications networks, as well as large independent agencies. We act for many cutting edge tech businesses, and high-profile tech investors both inside and outside the UK. We also act for clients in other sectors including media and entertainment, publishing, professional services, sport, music, fashion, retail, hospitality and leisure.

Each associate is allocated a Career Development Partner from amongst the team’s partners, who will have general responsibility for development of the associate.

All members of our team are given the opportunity to help grow our business and participate fully in our business development initiatives which may range from a variety of sector-based events, to writing in industry journals and presenting at seminars.  We are keen that our associates play an active role in this aspect of our business and they are encouraged to contribute with their own ideas and initiatives. All associates have a business development plan: we see this as a commitment of the firm to support these activities (even if comparatively minor), rather than a specific performance measurement rubric.

The ideal candidate would have some prior experience in respect of the majority of the below:

• general corporate advisory work such as share issues, share buy-backs and internal re-organisations;
• producing shareholder agreements and bespoke articles of association;
• the process relating to M&A;
• undertaking due diligence and assisting in producing due diligence reports including the executive summary;
• helping clients with a disclosure exercise and drafting a disclosure letter or schedule;
• drafting the typical ancillary documents on an acquisition or disposal;
• handling calls with clients without supervision, even if only on a basic level;
• acting on transactions with persons based overseas.

Candidate requirements

• We expect the candidate to have excellent academics and strong interpersonal skills.
• Given the largely transactional based work, we work in teams, with the size and composition of the team depending upon the nature of the transaction.
• 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.
• Our associates are encouraged to run their own transactions (with guidance on hand as and when necessary) and to develop their legal knowledge.
• The candidate will be expected to have looked at our website, and have assessed which of the sectors in which we specialise are of a personal interest

IT skills required

• Proficient IT skills - Office 365, Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word Compare (CompareDocs), Document Management System (Netdocs), Video Conferencing (Teams), although full in house training will be provided.
• Time recording (Intapp TIME)

Educational and professional qualifiations required:

• Qualified UK lawyer with a current UK practising certificate.

Language skills:

• Please let us know of any foreign language capabilities.  Whilst not essential, they may be useful in dealing with our diverse international client base.

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.