Knowledge Lawyer / Senior Knowledge Lawyer - Corporate

Stevens & Bolton LLP; Guildford; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Stevens & Bolton LLP in Guildford is seeking a forward-thinking knowledge lawyer to support the corporate team, working with the senior knowledge lawyer and head of corporate practice. The role focuses on mid-market M&A, restructurings, governance, and embedding technology in how the team delivers services.

The role is full-time, with potential for 4 days a week, and flexible hybrid/remote arrangements. In-office presence is requested 2 days per week.

Qualifications

• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Excellent legal research skills.
• Excellent attention to detail.
• Experience drafting in plain language.
• Experience designing and delivering training programmes.
• Demonstrated interest in knowledge management and legal tech.
• Recent M&A negotiation experience; desirable.
• Able to work collaboratively within a cohesive team.

Responsibilities

• Drafting and updating precedents and guidance notes for fee earners.
• Training and identifying training needs for lawyers at various levels.
• Supporting trainees and new joiners and delivering their training.
• Analyzing latest developments in corporate law and disseminating knowledge.
• Advising on legal issues with timely, commercially aware answers.
• Providing second opinions to senior team members.
• Providing research support and directing juniors to resources.
• Supporting business development initiatives and client campaigns.
• Staying up to date with legal tech solutions and implementing them.
• Supporting strategy and governance meetings and knowledge management initiatives.

Skills

Communication skills

Legal research

Attention to detail

Plain language drafting

Training design

Legal tech

M&A negotiation

Team collaboration

Education

Qualified lawyer

Job description

We are recruiting a forward-thinking knowledge lawyer to support the corporate team. You will work with the practice’s existing senior knowledge lawyer and report formally to the corporate practice group head. The focus of the role will be working with the current senior knowledge lawyer to assist the team with its work on mainstream corporate transactions, with a particular focus on mid-market M&A, corporate restructurings, other corporate procedures and corporate governance. You will also play a key role in enabling and embedding legal technology and championing new tools and ways of working to establish technology at the heart of the Corporate team. Combined with your legal knowledge this will improve delivery of legal services to our clients.

The role is full time, although candidates wishing to work 4 days per week may also be considered. As a firm we work flexibly and remote/hybrid working is available, with employees requested to be in the office at least 2 days per week.

The Team

Our award-winning corporate team offers quality and strength in depth unusual outside the City. The leading independent directories consistently rank us in the top tier. We are committed to an active intelligent growth strategy, for the team and the whole firm, and it is with this in mind that we welcome applications for technically strong, commercially minded and ambitious individuals.

The corporate team is one of the top corporate practices in the South East and consists of eleven partners with a team of 40 in total supported by at least two dedicated knowledge lawyers. The work of the team is high-quality and diverse and covers a broad range of corporate transactional and advisory matters, including:

• Private M&A (both buy side and sell side)
• Private equity (principally management advisory and portfolio work)
• Venture capital and other equity fundraisings
• Shareholders’ agreements and corporate joint ventures
• Inward investment and cross border

The team is supported by the full range of specialists required to deliver high quality, fast-paced corporate transactional work - including tax, employment, immigration and pensions, real estate, banking and finance, regulatory and anti-trust, intellectual property and commercial. A large proportion of our clients are multinational, based overseas or have international business interests, and we frequently work with overseas law firms, including the major jurisdictions in Europe and the US.

Our clients include household name FTSE 100 PLCs and other major national and international groups, mid-tier businesses (quoted, private equity and privately owned), management teams in private equity backed businesses, high-net-worth private clients and high growth companies.

In the run-in to the first Labour government budget in November 2024, the corporate team closed 30 deals in 30 days with a total aggregate transaction value of just under £1 billion, demonstrating the team’s exceptional transactional capability.

Examples of clients that you may experience working with are listed below and further information about our experience can be found on our website here.

Diploma plc, Bunzl, Philips, The Ardonagh Group, Specialist Risk Group, Davies Group, Bright Stars Nursery Group, Rock Rail, Optio Group, Nord-Lock International AB, Corus Dental, Vestey Holdings, BMT, Clinigen, Bright Path Sports Partners (investor in Ipswich Town Football Club), [Wates]

• Drafting and updating precedents and guidance notes for use by fee earners, including liaising with lawyers in relation to market practice.
• Training, including identifying the training needs for lawyers at various levels of experience and delivering appropriate training at all levels (in conjunction with fee earning lawyers) to the team and occasionally to clients
• Playing a key role in supporting trainees and new joiners in the team and devising and helping to deliver their training, and identifying training needs
• Carrying out analysis of latest developments in corporate law and ensuring that knowledge is promptly disseminated, internally and externally
• Advising lawyers and junior members of the team on legal issues faced in their transactions and matters with on-point, thorough, and timely answers (paying regard to the commercial context)
• Acting as a sounding board and providing “second opinions” to more senior members of the team on points of law and market practice
• Providing assistance with research and directing junior members of the team to appropriate resources
• Providing knowledge support to business development initiatives, including supporting client campaigns, training sessions and other initiatives
• Keeping up to date with legal technology solutions and leading with implementation in your practice area. Liaising with other knowledge lawyers and information services specialists across the firm to train and familiarise the team with new products and processes developed, both internally and externally.
• Supporting strategy and business group meetings and taking an active role in supporting the activities of those groups
• Drafting and managing the department’s Learning & Development plan, and supporting the delivery of the plan
• Maintaining an up to date know how repository of relevant example documents and encouraging contribution of relevant know how from fee earners

Technology & Innovation

Our KLs drive the conversion of tacit legal expertise into structured, reliable, machine-usable knowledge. In practice, they act as the bridge between fee-earners and AI systems.

• Data Hygiene: Leading the transformation of knowledge to clean, structured, and machine-readable data. Curating and normalising precedent for AI consumption.
• Centralised Repositories: Supporting the firms ambition towards centralised Knowledge Management systems to allow AI to access the full history of firm work product.
• Metadata Tagging: tagging of documents to ensure AI can retrieve relevant precedents, case files, or internal research – ensuring that there is contextual metadata around clauses and positions
• Data Governance & Privacy: Helping to ensure the safe use of data to train or query AI is, ensuring client confidentiality and adhering to ethical guidelines.

The role holder will play a key role in driving innovation in the corporate team, including:

• Supporting the development of the corporate team’s innovation strategy, from identification of high-impact use cases to effective roll-out of new ways of working.
• Driving adoption of legal tech tools to improve service delivery and lawyer productivity.
• Helping to identify, evaluate, and implement emerging legal technologies, including AI solutions (e.g. CoCounsel, Harvey, Lexis+ AI)
• Collaborating on client-facing tech initiatives and translating legal opportunities into innovation strategies.
• Contributing to the firm’s broader innovation agenda and supporting the team and leadership on change initiatives.
• Championing a culture of knowledge sharing around tech and AI, continuous learning, and legal innovation.
• Supporting upskilling programmes for lawyers in legal tech and innovation.
• Acting as a visible advocate for tech transformation across practice areas.
• Driving a positive change culture around tech and innovation.

Qualifications and Experience

Our ideal candidate will be an established corporate knowledge lawyer. However, we will also consider experienced corporate fee earners (5+) who are looking to transition into a first knowledge lawyer role. You will need to be a qualified lawyer with significant relevant experience in corporate law, and demonstrate the following:

• Excellent oral and written communication skills, and the ability to quickly gain the confidence of lawyers at all levels within the team and in other practice groups across the firm
• Excellent legal research skills
• Excellent attention to detail
• Experience in drafting in plain language and in English
• Experience in designing and delivering engaging training programmes, targeted at audiences across all levels of the firm
• Demonstrable interest in the relationship between Knowledge and legal technology, and a willingness to lead change related to tech-enabled legal service delivery and the effective use of AI. Embedding technology into ways of working and drive continuous improvement. A strong interest in legal tech and innovation is essential; prior experience in this area is desirable.
• Recent experience of negotiating on M&A transactions and associated market practice desirable but not essential
• Qualities that fit with a cohesive, friendly and supportive team