Solicitor/Claims Supervisor - Professional Indemnity

Job Introduction

Are you looking for a role where you will be intellectually challenged, but treated with respect? Or an environment where you can enjoy industry-leading work quality without compromising on client contact and business development?  An opportunity in our market-leading Bristol Professional and Commercial Risk team may be for you.

The team

Our Professional and Commercial Risks Team advises insurers and professional organisations when they are faced with the threat of a professional negligence claim. They act on numerous high value and sensitive claims for clients throughout the UK including solicitors, surveyors, accountants, brokers, engineers, architects and their insurers. The team are particularly experienced in the deployment of alternative dispute resolution techniques, including mediation and arbitration.

DAC Beachcroft Specialist Claims Services is a market leading claims handling team handling several thousand professional indemnity claims on an outsourced basis on behalf of London Market Insurers. It sits within the wider Professional Risk team.

Read on for more information about our specific vacancy and the firm as a whole.

Role Responsibility

To provide a high-quality service to clients in the management of complex, sensitive and/or high value professional indemnity cases; providing supervision, line management and training to a team of Claims Handlers; and contribution to the management of the Claims Handling Function.

File Handling

• Manage a varied professional indemnity caseload.  

Supervision and Quality Control

• Workflow management and quality control for the team including:
  • Reviewing and allocating incoming instructions.
  • Acting as a point of reference and control for the checking of case strategy as well as signing off reports on individual cases.
  • Conduct ongoing quality reviews of work produced by the team and assist with internal quality audits where required.  Assume overall responsibility, with the Partner and Claims Manager – Senior Associate, for quality control and compliance with client protocols.
• Ensure that the client’s brand and methodology are promoted effectively in all dealings with third parties.
• Ensure that the DAC Beachcroft brand and standards are maintained in managing the outputs of other panel firms.
• Assist in the supervision of the accuracy and timeliness of management reporting and information across the team.

Management

• Undertake line management responsibilities for Assistant Claims Supervisors, Senior Claims Handlers and Claims Handlers, including (for example):
  • conducting and providing feedback for performance reviews
  • providing coaching, mentoring and supervision
  • absence management
  • motivating and engaging colleagues and overseeing wellbeing at work
• Assist in the design and delivery of in-house training and know-how sessions on relevant issues and/or key developments in the professional indemnity field.
• Contribute to recruitment activity, such as CV review and interviewing.
• Attend, and contribute to, client and third party meetings.

The Ideal Candidate

Personal Skills

• Client focused with an ability to build strong relationships with client and third party contacts at all levels
• Able to work to deadlines, prioritise own workload effectively under pressure and manage conflicting priorities
• Proactive and energetic with a tenacious approach to identifying issues and solving problems
• Quality and customer service oriented with a concern for accuracy and an eye for detail
• Team oriented. A collegiate approach to sharing knowledge and working with colleagues across locations is essential
• Able to progress tasks using own initiative, seeking guidance and input from others where appropriate
• Committed and enthusiastic with a mature attitude to work and a desire to commit long term to a career in this field
• Confident 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