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, 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.

Location Note

At Lewis Silkin we are currently reviewing our flexible and agile working policies. This role will be based in our Belfast Office and the successful candidate will work principally with Ciara Fulton (Partner and Head of Belfast office) and Paul Gillen (Partner) but we offer hybrid working arrangements.

The Employment, Immigration and Reward 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.  With over 150 lawyers, Lewis Silkin’s employment and immigration team offers an unrivalled service supporting clients, including many of the world’s leading businesses, on their HR, employment and immigration law needs domestically and internationally.

The work of the team as a whole is a mix of contentious and non-contentious matters, for a wide range of clients.  The lawyers undertake a significant amount of business development and knowledge-sharing including giving seminars, training the team and creating content for various channels and publications.  There is a significant international element to the Division’s work, largely on account of its membership of the Ius Laboris international alliance of employment lawyers.

In Belfast the employment team consists of two Partners, one Consultant Partner, two Managing Associates, 1 Senior Associate and three Associates, as well as a Practice Development Lawyer, a Trainee Solicitor, 3 Paralegals and support team.

The Senior Associate’s workload will be exclusively employment and equality work. The Senior Associate will mainly be assisting more Senior Associates and Partners with their tribunal cases and advisory work, as well as running their own matters under supervision. They will be required to work with more Junior Associates and Trainees / Paralegals.  

The caseload will consist of a mix of contentious and non-contentious employment and equality work and the Senior Associate will have direct contact with a variety of clients which includes a good deal of relationship management. 

The role will develop in accordance with the Senior Associate’s own skills, aptitude and preferences and according to the needs of clients and the division.

Candidate profile

The successful candidate should ideally have 4 – 6 years’ post qualification experience, (although other PQE levels will be considered) preferably with the benefit of training and development in a well-respected employment team. Dual qualification in either England and Wales or Ireland would be desirable.

The candidate must have comprehensive employment law knowledge, a strong analytical ability and a clear communication style (both spoken and written). They must have a commercial approach to client service, enjoy and be comfortable doing business development and, above all, must be a team player.

IT skills required:

• Proficient IT skills - Office 365, Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Skype for Business, DocsCorp PDF Docs, Word Compare (DocsCorp CompareDocs), Document Management System (Netdocs), although full in-house training will be provided.
• Time recording (Intapp TIME).

Training

The Employment, Immigration and Reward Division’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 with the tools and skills necessary to develop. 

The successful candidate will be allocated a Talent Partner who will have an overview of their long-term career aspirations and progression.  We have an excellent track-record of developing our Associates and generating opportunities for Partnership.  Organic growth and a strong team culture is at the heart of our success.  

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.