Legal Business Change Consultant

Job Introduction

We are currently recruiting a Legal Business Change Consultant. The Business Change Consultant's role will be to work within our Business Improvement and Change department and will work with DACB’s legal teams to identify business-impacting issues and explore creative solutions to deliver valuable sustainable improvements to business practices. 

Working hours: Monday to Friday, 35 hours. Core office hours: 9.00-5.00

This role is open to all DAC Beachcroft UK office locations (https://www.dacbeachcroft.com/en/gb/locations/).

The ideal candidate will have previous experience in the Legal sector; with an understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing legal practitioners.  Direct experience of legal practice may be beneficial.

Role Responsibility

Identifying & prioritising change needs

• Develop a commercial and critical understanding of the business drivers and specific challenges faced by legal teams and their clients.
• Develop and maintain effective and pro-active relationships with lawyers, other key stakeholders and suppliers.
• Challenge senior stakeholders on the status quo to get to the root of the problem.
• Build compelling arguments for business change through interpretation of financial and other data.

Leading change

• Manage and lead on business change initiatives to deliver measurable benefits.
• Act as a liaison between the business and project team on all elements of business change, communicating effectively and providing hands-on direction, guidance and assistance.
• Lead on the development and testing of ideas along with new products and services in order to create innovative and creative solutions that deliver business change.
• Develop “real world” measurable critical success factors to drive adoption of business change initiatives.
• Work with third parties to build and deliver solutions to client and internal issues.
• Provide clear direction and engage stakeholders through effective communication and a positive profile.
• Act as a subject matter expert on all aspects of planning for successful business change, working alongside Project Managers as needed

Continuous improvement / working with BIC

• Identify opportunities to leverage successful solutions elsewhere in the firm, and work with teams to continuously improve those solutions.
• Share responsibility for ongoing BIC department process improvement, and for communicating and updating these as required.
• Provide coaching and best-practice training to wider Business Improvement and Change department.
• Be a role model / ambassador for business change and the benefits of Legal Project Management

Firm wide – the role holder will:

• Understand that DAC Beachcroft is an international firm; work with awareness of this structure to operate as one team/brand.
• Actively operate in the best interests of the firm at all times internally and externally.
• Operate in a regulated environment, effectively managing risk and compliance issues including data security.

Work in partnership with others to manage and mitigate commercial risk.

The Ideal Candidate

Legal sector experience

• Experience in the Legal sector; with an understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing legal practitioners and the ability to spot opportunities to leverage / exploit successful solutions.  Direct experience of legal practice may be beneficial.
• Knowledge of pricing structures and time recording practices within Legal organisations

Change / consulting experience

• Substantial experience in a consulting role, instigating and leading change, dismantling barriers to change, gaining buy-in through communication and delivering measurable benefits.
• Proven experience of continuous improvement methodologies and toolsets such as Six Sigma DMAIC, Lean Management.
• Proven experience of Legal operations improvement (e.g. LPM, eDiscovery, automation, bots) and legal technology
• High levels of numeracy and data analysis ability, assessing the commercial impact of a process improvement or business change.
• Proficient in statistical analysis and modelling techniques.

Other attributes

• Highly organised and strong attention to detail, focused on delivering high quality, accurate outputs.
• Pragmatic and outcome focused.
• Strong collaborator both internally and with external third parties ensuring delivery of results through teamwork and suitable external partnerships
• Exceptional people skills with a clear, persuasive communication style and a strong ability to engage others.
• Be highly credible with the ability to influence, challenge and coach senior stakeholders
• Self-motivated and resilient; enables others to achieve their potential
• A problem solver, willing to experiment, fail fast, learn & adapt.
• Highly innovative and future focussed.
• Experience of using Design Thinking methods with user groups to facilitate change
• Able to understand complex technical issues in order to provide clear direction.

Package Description

Benefits include: 

• 24 days holiday (excluding public holidays) 
• Option to buy and sell holidays
• Pension scheme (5% firm contribution, 4% employer contribution)
• Life insurance
• Private medical insurance
• Group income protection 
• Access to Wellbeing hub- Employee Assistance Programme Offering confidential 24 hour support, advice and information on a range of issues
• Access to Nudge, a financial educational tool

About the Company

We are a leading international legal business with over 2,400 colleagues and a diverse range of capabilities. We have 11 offices in the UK as well as offices in Dublin, Madrid, Paris, Singapore, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Miami. We also have associations/alliances with firms in Northern Ireland, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Brazil, Peru, Central America, Argentina, the USA, Australia and Germany.

We are known for our market-leading presence in sectors such as 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 the majority of the top 30 insurance and financial services companies operating in the UK. We are the asset management lawyers for the UK’s largest shopping centres and act for 9 of the UK’s top 10 housebuilders.

We have an impressive legal pedigree, with 155 Chambers UK 2019 practice area and individual lawyer rankings, including 30 rankings at 'Band 1' level. In Legal 500 UK, 2018, the firm received top tier ranking for 32 of its practice areas and 59 practice areas in the top two tiers. In March 2018, we were named as one of Legal Week's Best Legal Advisors for the third year running, achieving category-leading satisfaction scores for our commercial approach, service delivery, quality of legal advice, communication & responsiveness and overall relationships.

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.

DAC Beachcroft is an equal opportunities employer and we welcome applications from every sector of the community. We also welcome direct applications. 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

Our purpose is to help our clients and our colleagues succeed, creating sustainable value.

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.

Our strategy is to create sustainable value by achieving operational excellence, developing and acquiring business and pursuing profitable growth.

We will do this through a continued focus on our chosen sectors where we can differentiate ourselves, on business advisory as a driver for complex and high margin work in all sectors, and on the continued development of our international business.

All of this will be underpinned by a focus on clients, a clear commitment to talent and technology and a robust financing strategy.

Supportive: We are approachable, open minded and inclusive. We take time to listen and understand and we value and respect others’ abilities, contribution and views. We are trusted, appreciated as individuals and embraced as part of a team.

Determined: We act with integrity and are relentless in our pursuit of quality and excellence. We are confident and empowered to do our best for our clients, our colleagues and ourselves, to deliver whatever the challenge.

Creative: We share knowledge and insights and encourage constructive debate and challenge. We work collaboratively to generate new ideas and provide imaginative solutions.

Clear: We have clarity of purpose, objectives, roles, reward and lines of communication. We are transparent and straightforward in our behaviour and intent.

DAC Beachcroft