Practice Improvement Lead

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, Leeds, 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.

Lewis Silkin continues to focus on service excellence, collaborating with clients to embrace new ideas, technologies, and ways of working, helping to challenge the present and shape the future. 

You will be a key member of an important community of change practitioners at the firm, working closely with colleagues in our Practice Management, Finance and Project & Change teams, as well as other business and legal professionals.  

Working closely with our partners, associates and wider practice support colleagues, the Practice Improvement and Innovation Team play a vital role in supporting the delivery of the firm’s strategic objectives. You can expect to work on a variety of improvement and business growth engagements, helping to address opportunities for the benefit of our clients, the firm and our people.  

There is a particular emphasis on continuous improvement work across our client service lines, ensuring we are able to deliver effectively, efficiently, always with an eye on delighting our clients. 

• Work with practice leadership teams and colleagues to identify and scope improvement orientated engagement opportunities throughout the year, and as part of formal business planning cycles; 
• Lead and carry out work to define and address both business problems and opportunities: 
  • Develop appropriate delivery plans with LPG Heads, Business Managers, and other Business Services Teams (HR, Finance, Risk etc.) to successfully implement the desired changes, liaising with relevant stakeholders to ensure approval and support for the targeted benefits. 
  • Engage key stakeholders to gather and validate ‘as-is’ and ‘to be’ processes and ways of working, including risks, issues and pain points, in order to ensure there is alignment and understanding of the desired change.
  • As required, develop new processes and procedures, operating model, reporting, KPI's & SLAs. Work to be carried out in collaboration with practice management and other business professionals, including HR Business Partners.  
  • Agree proposed solutions with relevant stakeholders for further review and validation by the relevant sponsor, using appropriate data to help justify recommendations. 
  • Develop and execute appropriate project and change approaches to ensure the successful adoption of the agreed solution, utilising appropriate testing, readiness and launch strategies, working with and supporting the Technology team as appropriate.  
• Support the development and delivery of new products and services that continue to deliver on the strategy of the firm: 
  • Work with practice leadership teams, including LPG Heads and Business Managers, to create initial business cases for potential opportunities. 
  • Support the development of go-to-market strategies and deployment plans for leadership approval as required. 
  • Develop and execute appropriate project and change approaches to ensure the successful adoption of the agreed solution, utilising appropriate testing, readiness and launch strategies, working with and supporting the Technology team as appropriate.  
• Identify and share potential impacts on other engagements and projects on the firm’s change portfolio. 
• Support monitoring of the performance of changes as defined by the engagement, capturing and sharing lessons learned within the wider team and colleagues as appropriate. 
• Suggest and drive forward improvements to the appropriate methodologies and ways of working within the team. 
• Carry out additional appropriate activities as required. 

Candidate profile

• An experienced professional, with a proven track record of analysing and delivering multiple change initiatives simultaneously. 
• Adaptability, with the ability to perform a mix of Business Analysis, Change Management & Project Management tasks. 
• Pragmatic approach to solution delivery, applying appropriately tailored project & change management techniques to successfully bring about the desired changes. 
• Strong stakeholder engagement skills, able to understand different needs, wants and concerns, facilitating discovery and decision making, escalating risks, and managing stakeholder expectations. 
• A proven track record of defining problem statements, root cause analysis, gathering requirements, assessing impacts, data analysis, process mapping, identifying dependencies, and evaluating expected benefits. 
• Excellent communication skills and experience of bringing people together to agree and achieve shared outcomes. 
• Strong attention to detail and the ability to work in a deadline driven environment. 
• Ability to navigate ambiguous, changeable, and complex engagements. 
• Experience of working in partnerships or similar environments. 
• Legal industry experience desirable. 

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.