Senior Associate (FTC 12 Months) - Property Casualty, London

Job Introduction

DAC Beachcroft is recognised as a leading market practice in property insurance (domestic and international), providing a comprehensive service that includes handling a broad range of coverage, liability, defence and recovery issues, from multi-million pound major incidents and complicated policy coverage issues to dealing with modest value volume property claims.

We are looking to recruit a Senior Associate to join our market-leading global insurance team on a permanent contract based in London specifically working on a high profile and sensitive client investigation.  The opportunity may also exist in the future to work on other high value and complex property, construction and engineering losses for our London market and international insurance clients.  Much of our work has an international flavour.  Additional languages would be an advantage.

What we are known for

• We act for leading UK and global insurance and reinsurers;
• We provide comprehensive claims resolution and policy advice including mediation, arbitration and litigation in UK, internationally and in multi-jurisdictional cases;
• We have a specialist insurance claims, regulatory and advisory team;
• We provide cross-class capability;
• We operate as one firm, one team, one approach;
• We demonstrate international expertise and local knowledge.​

Our Property, Engineering and Construction services

• Coverage issues and policy drafting
• First and third party losses
• Fire, explosions, flood and impact damage
• Property recovery actions
• Major losses
• Plant or building failure
• Fraudulent claims
• ADR/Arbitration
• Comparative law expertise

Role Responsibility

Main responsibilities include:

• Analysis and application of legal principles to a complex and sensitive investigation, currently proceeding in a number of different legal forums in the UK
• Discussing and understanding technical construction detail
• Dealing confidently and professionally with clients, Insurers, a large counsel team and experts on day to day issues, where appropriate
• Displaying self-sufficiency and initiative, combined with an awareness of the boundaries of own competence/authority
• Adopting a commercial perspective as well as an academic approach to legal issues
• Adopting change with a positive, flexible approach towards the implementation of new initiatives
• Managing and supervising junior staff whilst also participating and contributing at senior leadership strategic level

The Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate will be able to demonstrate:

• Senior Associate knowledge and experience with 6+ years PQE
• Good technical legal skills
• The ability to analyse and apply legal principles and facts to derive technically sound, commercial strategies for complex issues that may impact the project in multiple ways
• Sound judgment in decision making, focused on client and case needs
• Experience of managing large scale document review exercises and be familiar with Relativity
• The ability to work with appropriate levels of supervision, recognising matters for escalation
• Drafting and reviewing correspondence, reports and litigation documents
• A competent, high quality level of technical expertise
• The ability to work to deadlines, prioritising workload and meeting conflicting demands on time
• Meeting and looking to exceed personal monthly and annual financial targets
• Commercial appreciation of personal and team’s link to achieving financial targets (e.g. utilisation, realisation, work in progress)
• Continually monitoring and taking responsibility for own performance
• Proactive financial management; attention to billing regimes, credit control, debt collection, accounting procedures and client service level agreements
• Recording time accurately and appropriately
• Engaging with and maintaining existing client relationships together with a willingness to be proactive in seeking out client development opportunities
• Understanding and compliance with client service level agreements
• Developing an understanding of the client's and our business and how the two fit together
• Strong analytical and problem solving skills.

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.

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