ROLE OVERVIEW //
Would you like to join one of the world’s most prestigious law firms?
We are offering a fantastic opportunity for a professional, technically strong and engaging individual to join us as an Associate, in our London-based Competition group.
In addition to its highly regarded Competition practice, the firm has extensive Corporate, Financial Institutions, Commercial and Financing practices. It also has strong practices in Financial Regulation, Technology, Digital, Data and IP, Tax, Real Estate, Dispute Resolution and Pensions, Employment and Incentives.
The firm is organised into groups that undertake a general spread of work, encouraging lawyers to work on an extensive range of matters. Much of the work spans the globe, with transactions involving our overseas offices as well as leading independent law firms in many other jurisdictions.
The matters we work on are generally challenging and sophisticated. We do, however, aim to give associates as much responsibility and client contact as they are ready for.
Group structure of our Competition practice
Our Competition practice in London is led by 7 partners, supported by 3 Senior Counsel, and currently has 70 associates and 18 trainees. We also have growing teams in both Brussels and Hong Kong. As an associate with us, you will potentially work with any of the partners across the Competition Group, including those based in other countries, giving you the opportunity to experience a wide range of working styles and strategic approaches.
The practice has a reputation for being one of the world’s leading, ‘go-to’ competition law practices, and our associates have regular involvement in much of the leading-edge work in this space. We handle cartel and other antitrust investigations and many high profile cases, including advising Google in relation to various competition investigations around the world; the European and international merger control aspects of major deals (such as Facebook’s acquisition of Kustomer and IAG’s acquisition of Air Europa); and multijurisdictional follow-on litigation.
The Group handles a variety of work types across the competition and regulatory fields. In contrast to many other firms, we encourage associates to maintain a broad caseload (across both contentious and non-contentious matters) rather than overspecialising. As a general guide, we would expect about 50% of your workload to relate to merger control matters, with the remaining 50% comprising a mixture of cartel investigations, abuse of dominance matters, state aid, public procurement, regulatory and other contentious matters. In our experience, this leads to greater.
Depending on the scale and complexity of any given project, you may find yourself operating as the single associate on a matter or working as part of a larger team. You will also have the opportunity to develop contacts outside the immediate team; for example, our Competition associates regularly work alongside Corporate, Disputes and Investigations and Intellectual Property lawyers, providing clients with unparalleled integration when it comes to legal advice.
With the Competition Group operating out of our London, Brussels and Hong Kong offices, there are often both international and domestic client secondment opportunities available to associates, all of whom are encouraged to spend time working at one of our other offices at the appropriate time.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES //
The key responsibilities of this role are set out below and there may be others which are not listed. You may be required on occasion to work outside our normal working hours of 9:30am to 5:30pm.
- Advising on a range of competition law and commercial issues
- Drafting, reviewing and amending the legal and commercial aspects of documentation
- Developing professional relationships with clients
- Supporting the wider team in developing business and raising the profile of the firm
- Managing/supervising the work of others including trainees
CANDIDATE PROFILE //
Candidates for this position must have:
- Appropriate level qualification (0-6 PQE, preferably developed in a City or leading international firm, but we will consider all applicants)
- Ability to draft, advise and negotiate in relation to complex transactions
- First rate legal/commercial knowledge
- Strong academic background and a demonstrable high level of intellectual analysis
- Excellent client relationship skills
- Excellent efficiency and transaction management skills
- Ability to develop and work in a fast paced, intellectually challenging environment
- Resilient under pressure with the ability to manage multiple deadlines
- High level of professionalism and integrity
- Exposure across a range of high value commercial and corporate transactions or similar (e.g advising companies in regulated sectors such as telecoms, energy, broadcasting etc)