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Practice Development Lawyer - Financial Services

Are you interested in joining a growing team? If so, this is a unique opportunity to join Burges Salmon's highly regarded Financial Services Sector Group at a time of expansion as its first Professional Support Lawyer. This is part of a series of significant investments in our Financial Services practice (FS is one of our core sectors).

The financial services sector is constantly evolving against a challenging backdrop of legal and regulatory change. Many of our clients are at the forefront of new developments and innovation - we work closely with them to help them achieve their strategic goals and growth plans.  As the first PSL in our Financial Services Sector Group, you will be a key part of a market-leading team at an exciting time of expansion.

The Firm – why come to us?

We are proud to have received an Investors in People - Platinum Accreditation and have recently been voted by our people as a RollOnFriday's ‘Firm of the Year to Work for 2023'.

Our working environment is professional yet progressive, where quality of work and quality of life go hand-in-hand. Our collaborative approach to how we do business is totally refreshing. It's what attracts some of the best legal minds in the industry and it's why our people love working here.

We have offices in Bristol, London and Edinburgh. And did you know our hybrid working model encourages many different ways of working?

Team

“They do not sit on the fence. The advice is actionable. Even where the regulatory position is not clear, advice will set out the risk and appropriate mitigating actions in order that the business can move forward.” Legal 500, 2021

  • Our fintech team is ranked band 1 (national leaders) in Chambers & Partners' independent legal directory based on its London, UK-wide and international fintech activity. Our team was also named as the Best FinTech Law Firm - UK at the FinTech Awards 2021.
  • Legal 500 recently named us as a “Firm to Watch” for Private Funds.
  • Lexology has recognised us as a Legal Influencer for Financial Services in both 2021 and 2022.
  • Our Financial Services lawyers have also received excellent recognition on an individual basis in both Legal 500, Chambers & Partners and Who's Who Legal.

Our cross departmental financial services lawyers advise a wide range of high profile FCA and PRA authorised financial services firms on all non-contentious and contentious matters.

While the team is based in Bristol and Edinburgh, most of our work originates in London, across the wider UK and, increasingly, internationally. For outward-bound cross-border matters, we work closely with our preferred firm international network.

Clients

Our clients include significant financial institutions such as [St. James's Place, the Royal London Group, the Embark Group, the Ecclesiastical Group, M&G, HSBC, NatWest, Julian Hodge Bank and the FSCS, and we also work with start-ups and scale-ups as they establish and grow their businesses.

The Role

As a PSL, you will be an integral part of the Financial Services Sector Group.  It will be important to be aware of the sector's strategy, contributing your expertise to its successful delivery.

You will support the development of those in the team by identifying knowledge and skills gaps in the team and the individuals within it.  You will be responsible for devising a comprehensive and varied training plan to address these needs and for personally delivering or managing these initiatives; ensuring attendees are actively engaged and participating.

You will be the trusted curator of sector knowledge and be a source of technical know-how, conducting legal research to stay on top of developments in the Financial Services sector and its regulation. You'll disseminate your knowledge to others, educating them on aspects relevant to their role and facilitating the sharing of knowledge within the team.

In your role as a PSL, you will play an active role across the team as a role model and actively set the cultural tone within the unit, inspiring others by your actions and making it a great place to work.

A wider interest in modern, training practices would also be of benefit, as would an interest in being involved in the team's business development (for example through the development of and involvement in preparing and delivering client briefings, articles, blogs and webinars).

You will also work closely with our FS Business Development Manager to spot client/market issues and to cooperate closely.

Requirements

As a financial services PSL, you will of course have relevant experience working on or in connection with financial services matters. Ideally you will have good knowledge of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, subordinate legislation (including the Regulated Activities Order and the Financial Promotion Order) and the FCA Handbook and/or PRA Rulebook.  In addition;

  • You will be a qualified lawyer registered with the SRA or Law Society of Scotland, with at least 4 years post-qualification experience in financial services and financial services regulation.
  • You should be proactive and technically strong, as well as being passionate about sharing technical know-how, as you will be the go-to person for the team. You should have the confidence to debate technical issues and the ability to encourage our team.
  • You should therefore be a strong team player who is able to manage a varied workload effectively. You will need to be well organised, as your skills will be in demand from various members of the cross-departmental team.

Experience of working in industry in the sector would be of benefit (for example as an in-house lawyer or time spent on secondment) but it is by no means essential.

It's important to us that our organisation represents the diverse community in which we operate and we encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and identities. As a Disability Confident employer we will provide a fully accessible recruitment process.

We are committed to finding the right person for this role and we welcome the full range of different ways of working (such as  flexible working, full time or part time and other bespoke arrangements).

Applications

If you would like to learn more about the opportunity, please contact, in confidence, Victoria Lewton.

Documents

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