Let us introduce ourselves…
It is the people at Shakespeare Martineau that make us so special. By understanding what our people want, giving them the support they need, recognising everyone’s contribution and realising the unique power of teams; together we win. As a firm we are focused on proactively building and developing diverse teams, bringing different backgrounds, personalities and perspectives together. We play to our strengths, pushing ourselves to be consistently better than yesterday and deliver amazing solutions for our clients. We empower our teams with a high degree of individual responsibility; we self-manage and encourage everyone to be responsible for their own learning, knowing it makes us even better at what we do!
We believe in trusting our people to make the right decisions for themselves from how you dress to how, when and where you work – we focus on outputs.
Want to find more about our amazing benefits?
Meet the team:
Our Litigation Services & Dispute Resolution group has a long-standing experience of working with some of the most successful and influential businesses in the UK and also internationally. Our specialist teams combine expertise with a sound understanding of the commercial landscape to provide exceptional solutions for every aspect of our clients’ corporate requirements.
The Managed Legal Services team supports Shakespeare Martineau, Lime Solicitors and Corclaim with legal process management, paralegal support, client discovery, due diligence, discovery, data intelligence, knowledge management and client management services. The role of this team is to help improve efficiencies and the client experience by supporting our fee earning teams.
The opportunity:
We have a fantastic opportunity for an enthusiastic and driven Finance Analyst to join our Managed Legal Services team, part of the firm’s wider Litigation Services & Dispute Resolution group.
The roles key objective is to support the team during our audit work. You will be involved in all stages and therefore excellent communications skills are essential, as you will be working closely with both our client and other teams within the business. Due to the nature of the work, there may also be times where you will need to deal with distressed individuals.
This is an exciting role that offers excellent career progression and would suit someone who is highly ambitious, self-motivated and with a keen eye to detail. You will have exposure to hands-on work from day one, and will play a key role in supporting the group.
Your key duties will be:
- uplifting and confiscating files and finance related items from premises
- assisting in the reconciliation of the audited firms accounts
- examining and investigating accountancy records to establish the true beneficiaries of client funds
- analysing financial accounts to pull out key pieces of information and highlighting any breaches
- reporting on our analysis clearly and accurately to assist in our reporting requirements
- assisting in the preparation of distribution lists and payment reports
- liaising the Finance Lead and our client throughout the audit process
- liaising with the Group Finance function where appropriate including for ongoing CDP and professional development
- supporting the Commercial Manager and the wider business unit on other finance related tasks, when capacity permits
Skills and experience you will have:
- a minimum of 3 years’ previous experience working in a legal finance, legal cashier or legal accounts role is essential
- a strong understanding of the Solicitors Accounts Rules
- the ability to work with large amounts of data and report on it
- strong communications skills and the ability to convey information clearly to all areas of the business
- strong attention to detail with the ability to analyse legal financial accounts and pull out important information
- a ILFM/AAT qualification, or working towards CIMA/ACCA would be preferable
Key competencies you will need:
- to be able to cope with a high volume workload and work well under pressure and to tight deadlines
- to enjoy working with figures
- to be highly enthusiastic, willing to go the extra mile and be happy to go beyond the job description
- to be respectful towards others and have a positive, willing and ‘can do’ attitude
- to be keen to learn, interested in driving your own career progression and be proactive in taking ownership of this
How we work:
We embrace agile working and offer a blended approach to where and how we work.
We appreciate that people have different needs and preferences and we’re keen to be flexible, after all, we value what you do, not where you do it.
We have hubs in Birmingham, Leicester, London, Lincoln, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Solihull, Stratford-upon-Avon and Sheffield. This role is linked to our Birmingham hub and a high level flexibility for UK wide travel is required, often at short notice.
Our standard office hours are Monday – Thursday 9.00am to 5.30pm and Friday 9.00am – 5.00pm. Due to the nature of this role candidates will need to be flexible in terms of working hours; in addition to our standard hours cover will be required during evenings and weekends. |
