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 education claims and complex professional indemnity work.  The team is ranked Tier 1 in both the Chambers and Legal 500 directories.

Our long established team acts for most of the leading professional and financial risks insurers, as well as large professional services firms themselves including leading global surveyors, solicitors and insurance brokers.

We cover all the major professions, with service line specialists and have also developed a number of very successful niche lines of business, to complement our core professional indemnity strengths; in particular in Directors' and Officers' (D&O) insurance and claims against schools, colleges and universities.

Kylie Poyner has developed a leading reputation in defending education claims against schools, colleges and universities. We are seeing considerable growth in such claims, including from the turmoil created in the education sector by the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are handling a wide range of education claims, both for insurers and, increasingly, direct from universities and schools, including claims making allegations of failing to prevent bullying and to detect special educational needs (including before the SEND Tribunal). This is an area which plays to the team’s strengths and is an area we wish to grow further.

Role Responsibility

Specific responsibilities include but are not restricted to:

• Handling claims against educational establishments (schools, colleges and universities), on behalf of their insurers or the establishments themselves.
• In addition handling an interesting and varied mixed workload of miscellaneous professional indemnity claims, as well as claims against, Directors & Officers, insurance brokers, Clubs and unincorporated associations.

Advising on insurance coverage issues.

• Support marketing and business development activity within the team e.g. attending marketing events and client training. In particular the opportunity to support the growth of our education work-streams and build relationships with the leading insurers and insurance brokers in this specialist area. In addition to build relationships with the educational establishments themselves.
• 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 experience in handling claims on behalf of educational institutions.
• Candidates with professional indemnity experience and a particular interest in education claims are also encouraged. 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 2,500 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