Paralegal - Commercial and Household Recoveries - Bristol

Job Introduction

The Claims Solutions Group (CSG) Property team in Bristol provides solutions to the Insurance property recovery sectors. Our specialist property and recovery team of 1 Partner, 1 Associate, 16 Solicitors/ Legal Exec and 17 paralegals provides expert and practical advice over a range of areas:

• Public Liability / Property Damage claims

• Professional indemnity claims - defending Architects, Surveyors, Engineers etc

• Property subsidence

• Property recovery

• Fraud recovery

• Credit hire recovery

• Motor recovery

The CSG Property team is expanding, we are looking for a Paralegal to work specifically on claims relating to:

• General property recoveries (fire, escape of water, impact of vehicles into property etc)

• Subsidence mitigation (involving bringing legal proceedings where necessary to mitigate damage to property caused by third party trees, failed foundations, failed underpinning, escape of water etc)

• Motor recoveries (involving recoveries against negligent third parties for causing damage to motor vehicles) and

• Costs involving negotiating legal costs

Role Responsibility

To provide a timely, professional and high-quality service to clients in the review and allocation of volume pre- litigated cases in our triage team.

The candidate will be asked to undertake:

• Early analysis and investigatory work on new property instructions to assess the prospects for a recovery.

• Reviewing Insurer policy documents, loss adjuster reports and expert evidence.

• Investigating liability on a variety of general recoveries claims, ranging from impact, escapes of water, flooding, impact and fire damage etc.

• Gathering evidence and ensuring the technical and expert evidence obtained by insurers loss adjusters is sufficient to prove causation.

• Interviewing insured clients and discussing claims with loss adjusters/assessors.

• Creating summary reports for new instructions which outline the circumstances, prospects, concerns and ultimately making a decision on whether the instruction holds viable prospects for a recovery.

• Reporting to insurer clients with a claim review and a decision as to whether to Property team will be taking on the instruction.

The Ideal Candidate

The successful candidate will require:

• Good understanding of claims handling practice and strategies
• IT skills - Be IT literate with a good working knowledge of Excel and Word.
• Prioritisation & Organisation skills – The ability to organise their own time, recognise what's a time pressure, what's important and when to ask for help.
• Analytical skills – The ability to critically look at factual evidence and identify potential recovery claims.
• Commercial sense – The ability to know the principle or law but also know when a claim worth pursuing.
• Interpersonal skills – The ability to get on with a team, speak to a customer on the phone and meet a client.
• Be change oriented, with a positive, flexible approach towards the implementation of new initiatives.
• Aptitude to learn – The ability to retain knowledge and put into play new skills.
• Good oral and written communication skills.

About the Company

We are a leading international legal business with over 2,500 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 Malaysia, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, 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