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, Manchester, 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 firm comprises of two divisions EIR and CMI

The Employment, Immigration and Reward (‘EIR’) division is one of the leading employment law practices in the UK and consistently top ranked by independent legal directories, we have more recognised experts in employment than any other UK firm. 

The Creators, Makers and Innovators (‘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. From start-ups to multinationals, the firm’s comprehensive and commercially focused advice helps clients succeed in an increasingly complex and converged international marketplace.

The Team – Data & Privacy

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. The primary focus of your work will be data, commercial and corporate work and we will provide a superb platform you to help develop your knowledge, career and clients.

As referenced in the Chambers & Partners (and Legal 500), the team are most well known for their diverse data protection practice encompassing a range of sectors from media and entertainment, retail to professional services. Additionally, they are known for the handling of sensitive data relating to employment and providing support with cutting edge and complex adtech and AI projects. In this role you will join Partners who are leading practitioners in their areas (including Alexander Milner-Smith who has been ranked as an ‘Up and Coming Lawyer’ in both 2021 and 2022).

The Data & Privacy team is made up of two partners, one legal director, eight associates, one practice development/support lawyer, one specialist privacy analyst, one trainee and one specialist 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.  We would expect you to be involved in advising on issues arising in a workplace context or a commercial context as well involved in contentious work.

Typical work types include (but not 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 (including planning and reviewing intra group data sharing strategies);
• DPIA production for simple projects to 6-12 month DPIA projects involving design and build of products and similar;
• Advising on client marketing strategies;
• Dealing with data incidents from initial enquiry to claim process/litigation;
• Assisting with data subject rights requests;
• GDPR audit work including data mapping;
• Regulatory response work (in the UK and further afield);
• International project management; and
• Provision of tactical advice on data and privacy governance strategies and international issues;
• Ad hoc day to day GDPR, PECR and FOIA queries in both a workplace and commercial context.

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.   

As a Senior Associate in the team you would work across all of the above areas – sometimes in multi person teams, at other times leading a project with the help of junior associates.

However, although your work will involve advising on workplace data privacy issues and well as contentious data issues, we are really looking for someone who has some commercial drafting experience and understanding of commercial/ technology contracts.  Many of our team have come from a commercial/technology background and still pick up pure commercial/technology work, so even if  your background is more commercial/technology than data to date, this would be fine.

Although we do not currently advise a lot of clients in the cyber security space, this is something we are exploring so an interest or background in cyber security would also be welcome but by no means a requirement.

Prior Experience

You should be c.5 plus years’ PQE with strong technical legal skills, excellent drafting skills and strong experience of the legal subjects described. You should expect to work hard yet have fun!

You should have solid experience from working in a well-established medium or large private practice law firm, within a Commercial/Data & Privacy team.

You should have excellent drafting, analytical and communication skills as well as strong attention to detail. You should be ambitious, proactive, commercial, responsive and keen to deliver excellent client service. Academic rigour is important, as is technical legal excellence within this role.

We expect our Senior Associates to contribute positively and proactively to business development, including for their own career development. The team markets extensively in its core sectors and you will be expected to play a significant role in thought leadership and client training as well as helping to develop and win work in core growth areas. You should be confident networking and be working towards developing your own pool of contacts.

You will also be expected to participate in and contribute to each of our internal monthly Data know how sessions as well as our highly regarded external client facing know how sessions.

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 and Senior Associates with the tools and skills necessary to develop. 

The successful candidate 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 Senior Associates and generating opportunities for Partnership.  Organic growth and a strong team culture is at the heart of our success.  

Educational and professional qualifications required:

• Excellent academics
• Qualified lawyer who is dual qualified in E&W and Ireland
• Strong experience working in a well-established private practice
• Desire to support junior associates within the department
• Interest in innovative tech (not absolutely essential but certainly welcomed)
• Sense of fun!

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.