Location: London
Vacancy Type: Solicitor
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full-time
Experience Level: Senior Level
Expiry date: 30/12/2023
About Us
Bird & Bird LLP is an international law firm which supports organisations being changed by technology or the digital world. We combine exceptional legal expertise with deep industry knowledge and refreshingly creative thinking, to help clients achieve their commercial goals. We have over 1,300 lawyers in 31 offices across Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific, and North America, as well as close ties with firms in other parts of the world. If you want to find out more, visit www.twobirds.com.
The firm offers excellent prospects for progression and our culture provides all our people with world-class support to achieve their ambitions and goals.
Bird & Bird is committed to maintaining an inclusive work environment and we are an equal opportunities employer. We support an agile working environment and are happy to discuss flexible working.
The Role
A Senior Associate position has arisen in the EIB team and will come with a lot of autonomy and potentially significant career progression. The role will consist entirely of EIB and you will be advising on: incentives aspects of corporate transactions, including structuring earn-outs and tax planning; the design of management incentive arrangements, including EMI plans, growth shares and other arrangements; cross-border incentive arrangements, including the roll-out of equity arrangements across multiple jurisdictions; advising on employment taxes, including termination payments and internationally mobile employees. The team at Bird & Bird works closely with founders and key members of the management team in organisations of varying sizes and we have a particular strength in assisting startup businesses. You will therefore need to be able to advise in a concise, commercial manner
What you'll do
- The EIB team mainly acts for private companies from start-ups through to exit with an emphasis on the Tech & Comms and Media, Entertainment and Sports sectors. We also act for a small portfolio of AIM listed companies.
- We work closely with the Corporate and Employment groups. The group coordinates cross-border share plan roll-outs and advises on the incentive’s aspects of corporate transactions.
- The role will include drafting share-based incentive arrangements, advising on employment taxes, management incentives and shareholder taxation as well as servicing on-going queries from a large portfolio of existing clients.
- Members of the team are involved in marketing and business development. The firm offers excellent prospects for progression and our culture provides all our people with world-class support to achieve their ambitions and goals.
The main responsibilities of this role are outlined above, however this description is not exhaustive and the job holder may be required to undertake additional duties from time to time to ensure the smooth running of the department. The role may require some working outside our normal working hours of 9:30am- 5:30pm.
Your skills
Candidates will need to have an appropriate level of experience of EIB matters, gained in a law firm environment. Exposure to private company work is essential, whilst international and venture capital experience is desirable, along with knowledge of technology-related sectors.
The successful candidate will have:
- Excellent academic achievement.
- Experience of handling employee incentives, share plans and tax matters gained within a comparable environment.
- A desire to be working for a truly international firm.
- A clear understanding of the operation and structure of a commercial law firm.
In addition, we expect the successful candidate to demonstrate:
- Flexibility, supporting cases across a broad range of matters.
- The ability to manage aspects of complex matters and clients, with proven negotiation skills.
- A knowledge of key areas of the law by providing clear, precise, practical advice.
- The ability to use initiative and a confidence built upon solid success and achievements.
- The ability to liaise effectively with other fee earners from within the group, but also to liaise and coordinate with fee earners from other relevant disciplines and jurisdictions as required.
- Delegation and supervisory skills.
- Being keen to work in a challenging, team-based environment.
- The willingness and ability to support business development activity, creating and maintaining strong client relationships and identifying new business opportunities.
- A commitment to regularly update their own technical expertise and to achieve continuous improvement and development.
- The ability to contribute to the general upkeep of the group (whether that be training, precedent or know-how generally).
Bird & Bird is committed to creating and sustaining a diverse and inclusive environment. We are delighted to confirm that we have recently achieved Mansfield Certification, following our successful participation in the UK pilot programme. This certification was achieved by considering at least 30% women, lawyers from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, lawyers with disabilities and LGBTQ+ lawyers for at least 70% of UK fee earner and leadership positions. We are participating in Mansfield Rule UK 2.0 and continue to work towards ensuring a diverse pool of candidates are considered our roles, in line with the Mansfield Rule. You can read more about this here.