Associate - Employment

DAC Beachcroft; Newcastle upon Tyne; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

DAC Beachcroft's Employment, Pensions and Immigration team in the North seeks an Associate to join the Newcastle office. You will handle a busy workload spanning health, local government, and private sector clients, advising on contentious and non-contentious matters.

The role involves managing client relationships, supervising trainees, and contributing to business development while maintaining high professional standards and delivering practical commercial solutions.

Qualifications

• Solicitor with 4+ years post-qualification experience.
• Experience handling tribunal claims and non-contentious matters.
• Experience advising on major projects involving organisational change and TUPE is desirable.

Responsibilities

• Undertake a busy workload of employment matters for a range of clients in health, public and private sectors.
• Progress and manage a wide variety of client matters, both contentious and non-contentious.
• Supervise trainees and paralegals, and assist with business development and client seminars.

Skills

Solicitor 4+ yrs PQE

Commercial awareness

Client relationship skills

Education

Qualified Solicitor

Job description

Department: Employment, Pensions and Immigration - North

Location: Newcastle

Description

DAC Beachcroft's Employment, Pensions and Immigration team is one of the largest teams in the UK. The team works for a range of market leading clients across the financial services, healthcare and commercial sectors and is recognised as Band/Tier 1 in both the latest Chambers & Partners and Legal 500 UK rankings.

The Team advises public, private and third sector employers on human resource issues from daily personnel matters, including disciplinary and grievance issues, to strategic management issues such as collective redundancy programmes, industrial action, transfers of employees both within and outside the UK. The Team handles approximately 1,000 Employment Tribunal claims per annum.

For more information on our Employment and Pensions expertise please go to https://www.dacbeachcroft.com/en/gb/expertise/services/employment-and-pensions/

DAC Beachcroft - North

DAC Beachcroft’s Northern England offices; Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle EPI teams work closely together, with a focus on providing a seamless service to our client base across the North and nationally, giving DAC Beachcroft a market leading powerhouse in the North of the country.

The Newcastle team has a strong reputation in the North East market, acting for a stable of significant household name corporates as well as being a market leader in the public and independent health sectors.

Associate - Newcastle

The Newcastle team currently comprises 2 Partners, 18 lawyers, a Graduate Solicitor Apprentice and 6 paralegal and administrative colleagues. To support the continued expansion, we are seeking an additional Associate to join the team.

Key Responsibilities

• Undertake a busy and varied workload of employment matters advising employers in a variety of sectors, including health and social care, charities, telecommunications, marine, retail, logistics and acting for insurers.
• Progress and manage a wide variety of client matters both contentious and non-contentious
• Work on complex dismissal, discrimination and whistleblowing litigation with appropriate supervision.
• Assist on non-contentious projects including organisational change processes.
• General employment advisory work by telephone and email.
• Manage own matters, time and relationships with minimum supervision
• Take an active role in supervising the work of and assisting in the development of trainees, apprentices and paralegals
• Maintain an awareness of the appropriate limits of own competence/authority.
• Presenting and assisting in client and other external seminars, taking part in pitches and contributing positively to business development.
• Actively identify and exploit business development opportunities and marketing activity for team clients and own contacts.
• Maintain and develop technical knowledge through leading and attending training sessions, reading appropriate publications and exceeding Law Society CPD requirements.
• Provide support for colleagues where appropriate e.g. progressing matters in colleagues’ absence, supporting CRM activities.
• Continually monitoring and taking responsibility for own financial performance and demonstrating proactive financial management; attention to billing regimes, credit control, debt collection, accounting procedures and client service level agreements.
• Handle confidential data in line with the firm’s data security protocols.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• We would expect the post holder to be a solicitor of 4 years or more, post qualification experience (but will consider strong candidates with a different level of experience), from an established respondent focused practice, who will be able to manage their own work and caseload with minimal supervision
• Must have experience of tribunal claims and other contentious matters.
• Must have experience of non-contentious matters, preferably including advising on major projects involving TUPE, organisational change, collective consultation as well general advisory work with clients on a wide range of employment issues.
• Prior experience of working with or advising large institutional employers in heavily regulated sectors (e.g. health, local and central government, PLCs) would be advantageous.
• Good academic record, together with experience in a well-recognised firm
• Independent thinker with a focus on generating commercial solutions to problems on behalf of clients.
• Up to date knowledge of key trends in order to maintain credibility in conversations with clients.
• Confident communicator with an ability to develop relationships, undertake client marketing and influence at all levels.
• Enthusiastic team player with a flexible approach.

We are happy to talk flexible working with our Flex Forward scheme. We would encourage you to talk to us about our approach to flexible working during the hiring process if you would like to explore this further.