Professional Support Lawyer - Insurance - Bristol/Sheffield

CMS is seeking to expand its Insurance & Reinsurance professional support team with a lawyer who has an enthusiasm for the law and extensive people skills, to support a busy, diverse, and highly specialised Insurance & Reinsurance (IRG) team. They should be capable of working autonomously whilst very much being part of a team.  You can be based in either or Bristol or Sheffield office.

About CMS

CMS is a Future Facing firm.  With 80 offices in 50 countries and 5,000+ lawyers worldwide, we combine deep sector understanding with a global overview, giving us the ability not only to see what's coming, but to shape it.

CMS is well equipped to help our clients face the future with confidence. We are driven by technology and readily embrace the possibilities it opens up for developing new and better ways of delivering legal services. Our bold approach to a changing future ensures that we nurture our employees and recruit top talent.

About the Role

The individual will be proactive, self-motivated, and highly organised. The individual will collaborate with different services across the business as part of a valued professional support function, as well as working closely with and providing support to IRG’s existing senior PSL.

The PSL will bring opinions and ideas to the table, both in respect of optimising his/her role and delivering the training and know-how required by the various IRG teams (including via keeping up-to-date on market developments).

The individual will have an important role in the team, working closely with the existing PSL to enhance business functionality as well as being a “go to” for fee earner support. The individual will be able to manage multiple competing demands on his/her time and willing and able to take steps to ensure they are visible within the group and the wider firm.  

The successful applicant will be responsible for the following. 
•    Working closely with IRG’s existing senior PSL
•    Managing the identification and regular dissemination internally of important legal updates on the Insurance teams core lines of business through written materials and regular know-how meetings as well as ad hoc updates on general interest points as they arise.
•    Developing and managing knowledge databases, maintaining, or overseeing maintenance of electronic and hard copy resources and supporting fee earners with advanced queries. 
•    Regularly review and update existing standards as necessary, identify the need for new standards, checklists, guidance notes and their automation where beneficial. 
•    Identify the key know how and technical expertise required to support and grow the business opportunities within the IRG team. Construct robust quality documents to enhance the profitable operation of the department, employing document automation where beneficial.
•    Identifying areas of duplication of work/know-how or other areas where cost/efficiency savings can be made, e.g. by using third party services that are already available to the firm.
•    Contribute to the strategic discussion and implementation of mechanisms to facilitate and improve high quality legal work within CMS: Document automation, document lifecycle and new technology.

Training 
•    Identify general IRG topics for which pre-packaged training materials should exist and, to the extent they do not, ensure they are produced (with slides, notes and any other hand out materials considered relevant/appropriate) so that a suite of pre-existing training topics can be offered to clients at any time
•    Present on training topics when required
•    Manage internal training for the practice and junior team members, including external speakers where appropriate
•    Identifying relevant external events and training at which we should be present
•    Attend seminars/training as necessary to ensure PSL knowledge remains up to date

Business Development
•    Working with fee earners on identifying issues on which we should be basing BD strategies, producing articles/reports/other content, 
•    Drafting legal updates/content for client consumption 
•    Managing the identification of “LawNow”-worthy materials and managing the drafting and publication of LawNows with associate and partner support
•    Managing our intranet pages/presence
•    Support partners and other senior fee earners in BD activities

About You

We are looking for:

• A lawyer with expertise in Insurance, or disputes with an interest in learning more about the topic.
• A lawyer capable of gaining the respect and confidence of fee earners (at all levels) and partners on technical issues and whose work product will, indirectly, command the respect of the team’s clients and targets.
• Experience in a fee-earning or PSL role within a large City law firm or equivalent is useful, but certainly not essential. 
• Ability to work well within a PSL team.
• Demonstrates a high level of technical legal knowledge and expertise, together with expanding peripheral knowledge and expertise.
• Strong intellectual ability.
• Excellent written / oral communication skills.
• Excellent training and interpersonal skills.
• Excellent drafting skills.
• Ability to write and produce presentation materials.
• Strong organisational skills.
• Strongly self-motivated and self-managing as the role will require someone able to identify appropriate priorities among many options and drive projects forward.
• Excellent research skills.
• Good project management skills.
• Has a good understanding of best use of IT and other support functions to enhance advice and services, both within the firm and externally to clients.
• Credible and professional; sets an example by high quality of own work, consistency, enthusiasm and an open and professional attitude throughout the workplace.
• Courteous and considerate in all professional relationships; an excellent listener; judges well when to listen and when to transmit know-how.

Equal Opportunities

At CMS, a next-generation mindset is woven into all we do. We're diverse, supportive and inclusive, embracing our corporate social responsibility and creating a culture of sustainability in which every one of our people, whatever their background, can maximise their potential and thrive.

For further information about CMS' diversity initiatives and programmes, please click here to view the diversity pages on our website.

Please apply online or contact a member of the Talent Acquisition team if you have any questions. For information regarding our competitive range of benefits please visit our Rewards & Benefits page on our website.

Please note that CMS have a preferred agency panel in place. Only applications submitted via the portal at the point of instruction will be accepted.

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