LLP - Solicitor/Associate (2-7 PQE) Professional Indemnity (Bristol)

Job Introduction

You will play an active role in the continued growth and success of the professional indemnity team in collaboration with our wider practice in the South, as well as nationally. The team is ranked in Tier 1 in both the Legal 500 and Chambers directories, with a number of leading individuals named. It is the longest established professional negligence team in Bristol, acting for most of the leading insurers, as well as large professional services firms themselves including leading global surveyors, solicitors and insurance brokers. We deliver our services through specialist service lines covering all the key professions, including in the legal, surveying, financial services, insurance broking and construction sectors.

We have also developed a number of very successful niche lines of business; in particular in Directors' and Officers' (D&O) insurance, legal indemnity insurance and in defending education claims against schools, colleges and universities.

Role Responsibility

Specific responsibilities include but are not restricted to:

• Handling a mixed workload of professional negligence claims against a variety of  professionals with a focus on claims against surveyors and valuers;
• The opportunity to interact on a regular basis with clients;
• Responsibility for conducting both pre-action and litigated matters as well as assisting more senior fee-earners;
• The opportunity to liaise directly with experts and counsel, run disclosure exercises and draft witness statements;
• The opportunity to supervise and develop more junior members of the team;
• Acting as a point of contact for clients where necessary, demonstrating a level of knowledge and skill commensurate with experience;
• Maintaining an awareness of the firm's strategies and plans;
• Maintaining and developing technical knowledge through attendance at training sessions, reading appropriate publications and exceeding Law Society requirements;
• Ensuring full compliance with DAC Beachcroft protocols on billing and credit control and demonstrate a high level of financial management when supporting others in managing files and in relation to own files, where appropriate.

The Ideal Candidate

• Solicitor 2 – 7 PQE, ideally with litigation and / or professional indemnity experience.
• Solid academic track record at degree and CPE and/or LPC level (or equivalent) and appraisal feedback during the course of your training contract.
• Excellent relationship and client handling skills.  Able to deal confidently and professionally with clients on day to day issues.
• Able to demonstrate a reasonable level of self-sufficiency, combined with an awareness of the boundaries of your own competence/authority.
• An ability to adopt a client focused and commercial perspective rather than an ‘academic’ approach to legal issues, coupled with a keen grasp of legal issues, as these arise (demonstrating a clear ability to learn quickly ‘on the job’).
• Change oriented with a positive, flexible approach towards the implementation of new initiatives.
• Team oriented and collegiate with a willingness to share knowledge with and support other members of the team.
• Willingness to work hard as part of a highly ambitious and driven team to help it continue to develop and to achieve its objectives.

About the Company

We are a leading international legal business with over 2,900 colleagues and a diverse range of capabilities. We have 11 offices in the UK as well as offices in Dublin, Madrid, Paris, Milan, Rome, Singapore, Argentina Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Miami. We also have associations/alliances with firms in Malaysia, Brazil, Peru, Central America, the USA, Australia and Germany.

We are a broad-based commercial firm with a strong heritage in insurance, health and real estate. This is complemented by a fast-growing Business Advisory capability. We represent a wide range of clients, ranging from household names to government departments and NHS bodies. We act for all of the UK’s top-ten insurers, we are market leaders in the provision of strategic, commercial and regulatory advice to providers and commissioners in the health sector, and in real estate we advise all of the UK’s top-12 housebuilders.

We have an impressive legal pedigree, with 142 Chambers UK 2021 practice area and individual lawyer rankings. In Legal 500 UK 2021, the firm received a top tier ranking for 37 of its practice areas, and 58 DACB lawyers were singled out in the ‘Leading Individual' rankings.

Our successes have been recognised by the legal industry and the markets in which we operate. These accolades include two top prizes in the ‘Excellence in Business Development’ and ‘Excellence in Technology & Innovation’ categories of the 2020 Law Society Excellence Awards – the highest accolade for law firms in England & Wales. Our health sector team won the ‘Crisis Management Team of the Year’ award at the 2020 British Legal Awards for its support to the NHS at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and our Cyber & Data Risk team received the ‘Business Development Innovation Award’ at the 2020 Legal Innovation Awards, as well as ‘Cyber Law Firm of the Year’ at the prestigious Insurance Insider Cyber Rankings Awards, for its market-leading suite of digital tools to help our clients prepare for and respond to cyber and data risk crises.

Our vision is to be leading business advisers, recognised for our insight and our outstanding commitment to clients, and for being the place where talented people want to work. For further details on our work and our culture, please visit www.dacbeachcroft.com.

Application Details

At DAC Beachcroft, we don’t just accept your differences we celebrate them.  From bespoke solutions for our clients, to treating you like an individual.  Our strength comes from your diverse ideas and bringing the whole you to work. So if you’re good at what you do, come as you are.  We welcome direct applications and are happy to talk flexible working.

We also want you to be at your very best.  Please feel free to let us know of any changes we can make at any point in the recruitment process that will help support your application.  If this opportunity sounds of interest to you, please make an application and submit your CV.  Your application will be dealt with in the strictest of confidence.

Note for Recruitment Agencies – the DAC Beachcroft recruitment team is responsible for managing all current vacancies through direct hiring and referrals wherever possible.  We do work with recruitment agencies and where we require external support we will formally release those vacancies to the agencies on our Preferred Supplier List deemed best placed to assist us.  Speculative CVs sent by any agency to any DAC Beachcroft employee without a specific request by the recruitment team will not be accepted and with no introduction fee applicable.  Our recruitment team can be contacted at recruitment@dacbeachcroft.com

DAC Beachcroft