Solicitor / Associate - Professional Indemnity, Bristol
Job Introduction
DAC Beachcroft is looking for a new addition to our highly regarded Professional & Commercial Risk team in Bristol to undertake a varied caseload of complex professional indemnity work. The team is ranked Tier 1 in both the Chambers and Legal 500 directories.
The team advises insurers and professionals when faced with the threat of a negligence claim, acting on numerous high value and sensitive claims for clients throughout the UK, involving both 'traditional', (i.e. accountants, architects, brokers, engineers, surveyors, solicitors, etc..) and the 'emerging' (i.e. design / IT / media / recruitment consultants, etc..) professions.
The team also specialises in providing insurer clients with advice and guidance on insurance policy coverage issues and handling delicate relationships between insurers, insureds and brokers.
Claims often involve complex contractual, technical and factual issues with large sums at stake. The wider team is particularly experienced in the deployment of alternative dispute resolution techniques.
Role Responsibility
Specific responsibilities include but are not restricted to:
- Handling an interesting and varied mixed workload of complex professional indemnity claims including claims against: Directors & officers, Insurance brokers, Clubs and unincorporated associations, Educational establishments (schools and universities), Property professionals, other miscellaneous professions
- Act as a key point of contact for our leading professional indemnity insurer clients; demonstrating a level of knowledge and skill commensurate with experience
- Support marketing and business development activity within the team e.g. attending marketing events and client training
- Build an awareness of the firm's other services. Build effective internal and external networks
- Maintain an awareness of the firm's strategies and plans
- Maintain and develop technical knowledge through attendance at training sessions, reading appropriate publications and exceeding SRA CPD requirements
- Exercise full compliance with DAC Beachcroft protocols on billing and credit control and demonstrate sound financial management in respect of own files
The Ideal Candidate
- Suitable candidates will be between 0-5 pqe with relevant professional indemnity experience. Ideally this will come from a defendant background and with insurance coverage expertise, but we will consider candidates with claimant experience
- The successful candidate will be working directly alongside & reporting into a Legal Director and Senior Associate and will therefore have fantastic exposure to a complex and varied workload along with great support
- Excellent communication, relationship and client handling skills are essential for this role
- Ability to deal confidently and professionally with clients on day to day issues
- Ability to demonstrate a reasonable level of self-sufficiency, combined with an awareness of the boundaries of own competence/authority
- An ability to adopt a commercial perspective rather than an ‘academic’ approach to legal issues
- 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
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