Costs Consultant

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.  

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Our Lime & Corclaim Business 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.

Our Costs team handles all aspects of the legal costs process for a number of internal as well as external clients, dealing with both pre-litigated and litigated matters. We deal with costs matters from both a receiving party and paying party perspective. We offer a full range of service on claims of all sizes including the provision of advice, preparation of Bills of Costs, drafting Points of Dispute and Replies, preparing Costs Budgets and dealing with all aspects of the cost budgeting process to include attendance at CCMCs, drafting skeleton arguments on technical challenges, negotiating settlements, attending Detailed Assessment hearings and dealing with part 8 cost procedures.

Are you an experienced Costs Consultant looking for a new challenge? Do you have strong communication skills and boast a keen eye for detail? Are you looking to develop a career in a dynamic and expanding law firm? If so read on....

We are looking for both a Claimant Costs Consultant and a Defendant Costs Consultant to join our Costs Team, part of the firm’s Lime & Corclaim Business.

General key duties for both roles will be:

• drafting Precedent H cost budgets
• advocacy at cost management hearings and / or detailed assessment hearings
• managing a caseload of files
• formulating offers and negotiating settlements
• dealing with general correspondence
• handling telephone calls, and handling queries and enquiries where appropriate
• drafting schedules of costs
• handling receiving party costs matters and drafting bills of costs
• drafting points of replies or dispute

Skills and experience you will have:

• a minimum of 2 years’ experience in a similar role, gained from working in either a Claimant or Defendant role
• strong numerical ability
• experience in drafting bills of costs (Claimant role)
• experience in drafting points of disputes (Defendant role)

Key competencies you will need:

• strong commitment to the principles of good customer service and an enthusiasm to develop a career in the field of costs work
• excellent attention to detail and a high degree of accuracy
• the ability to prioritise your workload
• commitment and a team player approach with the ability to work in a busy team
• excellent communication skills over the phone and in person

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, Bristol, Leicester, Lincoln, London, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Solihull, Stratford-upon-Avon and Sheffield. This role will blended between working from home and from one of our office hubs (ideally Midlands based) with travel as required into our other hubs.  

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.