Legal Director

It’s 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 when and where you work, to how you dress; we focus on outputs.  

Want to find more about our amazing benefits?

We boast one of the largest planning teams in the country and have been identified as leaders in this field by both Chambers and Legal 500 for the last 18 years. Our legal planning team is further strengthened by our in house planning consultancy Marrons Planning, which has 17 town planners. Our highly-experienced Legal Planning team provide practical solutions to meet clients’ needs. Covering all areas of planning law, acting for commercial and residential developers, landowners and local authorities on both contentious and non-contentious matters, our team has the experience to meet diverse planning law requirements. Our experience includes dealing with planning appeals and inquiries, judicial reviews and statutory challenges, highways issues, section 106 agreements, section 278 agreements, advising on Community Infrastructure Levy and advising parties on the promotion and objection to Compulsory Purchase Orders and Development Consent Orders and related processes.

Our Legal Planning team are growing and we are on the lookout for an innovative and ambitious Legal Director to help support the team’s development.

This role is suitable for you if you can bring at least 7 years demonstrable PQE including a high degree of client contact and business development activity. 

Your key duties will be:

• providing instrumental assistance to our Head of Legal Planning, in order to provide a great service to our clients and business improvements
• assisting with business development and marketing opportunities
• dealing with clients in a professional manner, maintaining close and regular contact
• handling queries and enquiries efficiently
• maintaining good file management
• providing updates within specific timeframes on progress
• working to strict deadlines
• initiating and attending business development opportunities
• all relevant compliance measures

Skills and experience you will have:

• ideally a minimum of 7 years PQE, specialising in Planning work
• you will have been handling your own caseload with minimum supervision for at least 3 years, and will have a relevant qualification
• experience in managing or supervising others
• demonstrable business development successes IT literacy with the ability to use case management systems
• ideally, strong connections to, and a knowledge of, the local market place

Key competencies you will need:

• a high degree of initiative and the ability to cope in a demanding environment
• excellent organisational and prioritising skills
• the ability to build rapport with colleagues and clients alike
• the ability to develop the knowledge and expertise of the team, as well as yourself

About you – you will be:

• highly enthusiastic, willing to go the extra mile and be happy to go beyond the job description
• respectful towards others and have a positive, willing and ‘can do’ attitude
• keen to learn, interested in driving your own career progression and be proactive in taking ownership of this

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, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Solihull, Stratford-upon-Avon and Sheffield. This role will be predominantly home based with travel as required into our Milton Keynes hub.

Please be aware, for some vacancies, where we receive high numbers of applications we may need to bring the close date forward.

Due to the nature of the work undertaken, confirmation of employment will be subject to a variety of checks which will be carried out once an offer of employment is accepted. Details of the checks can be found here.

Shakespeare Martineau is a committed equal opportunities employer. We seek to attract, develop and retain talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures. We value and respect individuality and encourage a culture within our business where people can be themselves and be valued for their strengths and experiences. Everyone who either applies to or works for the firm is treated equally, regardless of their gender, age, ethnic origin, nationality, marital status, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.