Pensions Knowledge Lawyer/Senior Knowledge Lawyer

Osborne Clarke; Bristol; Hybrid; GBP 125,000 - 150,000; Part time

Job summary

A leading international law firm is seeking a part-time Knowledge Lawyer or Senior Knowledge Lawyer to support its esteemed Pensions team based in the UK. The role involves providing legal updates, organizing training, and assisting in presentations while fostering collaboration within the team. The ideal candidate will have a strong technical background in Pensions law, with responsibilities including maintaining precedent documentation and addressing queries related to current Pensions practices. This position offers an opportunity to work flexibly across various office locations.

Benefits

Generous benefits

Health and wellbeing initiatives

Qualifications

• Experienced in risk reduction and risk transfer exercises.
• Ability to present information clearly to audiences.
• Excellent organizational skills and technical accuracy.

Responsibilities

• Provide legal and regulatory updates to the Pensions Team.
• Organize and deliver legal training.
• Maintain a collection of precedent documents.
• Assist in client-facing seminar preparations.

Skills

Technical expertise in Pensions law

Presentation skills

Organizational skills

Collaboration

Proactive self-starter

Education

Legally qualified with post-qualification experience in Pensions

Job description

Role profile

We are looking for a Knowledge Lawyer or Senior Knowledge Lawyer to provide dedicated further Knowledge support for our highly regarded Pensions team.

This is a part-time, three days a week, role. You can be based at any of our offices (London, Reading or Bristol office) and will benefit from the Firm's connected working policy.

Our Pensions Team

The Pensions Team advises employers, trustees and local authorities in order to help them run their pension schemes compliantly, while managing risks. The Pensions Team also runs one of the UK's leading independent trustee companies, Open Trustees, so has direct experience of operating pension schemes.

The Pensions Team specialises in, and advises on, a range of matters relating to defined benefit, defined contribution and public service pension schemes. In addition to general pensions regulatory and advisory, its work includes advising in relation to:

• Risk reduction and risk transfer exercises (such as buy-ins and buy-outs and alternative funding arrangements).
• Pension Protection Fund (PPF) assessment periods, insolvency related pension issues and regulatory compliance.
• The Local Government Pension Scheme (authority, employer and contractor issues).
• The pensions aspects of corporate acquisitions and disposals, scheme mergers, government outsourcings, insolvencies, restructurings and wind-ups.
• Emerging defined contribution schemes.

The team is also involved (alongside Osborne Clarke's Disputes and Resolution team) in acting for employers, trustees and representative beneficiaries on complex litigation claims, including professional negligence and Part 8 claims.

The Pensions Team currently consists of 7 partners and 21 other fee earners and professionals.

The opportunity

Knowledge is at the heart of Osborne Clarke's strategy, and you will join an innovative, market-leading and highly supportive Pensions Team and wider Knowledge Team.

The Pensions Team sits within our Advisory Practice Group. The principal purpose of this role is to provide dynamic, technically excellent, business and client-focused support to the Pensions team. You will work closely with our Pensions Knowledge Lawyer Director, the Pensions Partners, the Head of Advisory Knowledge and other members of the Knowledge Team as well as sales and marketing professionals.

The role requires strong Pensions technical expertise, however previous Knowledge Lawyer experience is not essential. Support and mentoring will be available from the Head of Advisory Knowledge and from other senior members of the Knowledge team.

Key responsibilities

Your focus will be working closely with our Pensions Knowledge Lawyer Director and Pensions Partners to increase and extend the existing knowledge support for the Pensions Team. Here are some examples of what you should expect to be doing in this role:

• Helping to keep the Pensions Team up-to-date on legal and regulatory changes across the team's practice, including producing a comprehensive regular Pensions Knowledge News Update and producing reader-friendly internal updates on relevant developments.
• Helping to organise the delivery of legal training, delivering legal training and facilitating know-how sharing.
• Understanding and promoting AI applications and other technology to the work of the Pensions Team, including its risk management and processes.
• Maintaining and expanding a technically excellent collection of precedent documents, designed with our clients and excellent client service in mind.
• Assisting in the preparation and delivery of client-facing presentations, seminars and workshops including preparation of presentation content for lawyer speakers.
• Preparing client facing publications on developments with a client impact, including targeting and placing content in Pensions journals and/or other publications.
• Dealing with queries from lawyers across the firm regarding current Pensions law and practice.
• Leading the Pensions Team's response (where relevant) to government consultations on new or amended Pensions law.

Skills and experience

You will have strong technical capability in relation to Pensions law and regulation that affect businesses and the application of it to real life business issues. Recent experience of risk reduction and risk transfer exercises (such as buy-ins and buy-outs) is helpful.

Due to the technical nature of the work, we are looking for someone who is legally qualified with a solid foundation of post-qualification experience in Pensions. You may currently be a fee-earning lawyer in private practice or working within the legal team of a business, in academia or in a knowledge role elsewhere, or returning to work after a career break.

You will have an ability to present information clearly and confidently to internal and external audiences - both in writing and when speaking.

You will be a pro‑active self‑starter with excellent organisational skills. You will be able to form an accurate technical understanding of developments and, generally, display a high level of technical accuracy in your work. You will be good at collaborating with other specialists in your field and working as part of a cross‑disciplinary team where needed.

If you are unsure whether your qualifications and experience are right for the role, please do contact us – we are always happy to have informal conversations with people who would like to join our team.

Salary and benefits

We offer competitive salaries and generous benefits. We value the health and wellbeing of our people and our wide range of initiatives and benefits support this.

Our recruitment process

Please note that although we include closing dates for our roles as a guide, we review and progress applications on a rolling basis. At Osborne Clarke we do not make any recruitment decisions using automated decision‑making.

We are committed to providing an environment where you can perform to the best of your abilities at every stage of your recruitment experience and beyond. If you require any adjustments to be made during the application stage, interview process, or when working with us, please let us know in confidence.

About Us

Osborne Clarke is an international legal practice with over 330 Partners and more than 1,260 talented lawyers in 26 locations*. Our sector‑based approach enables us to help our clients tackle the issues they are facing today, and prepare for the ones that they will face tomorrow. Advising them both comprehensively and commercially. We love working closely with our clients on new deals, products and solutions which will transform their businesses, markets and even sectors. And our unique approachable culture is not an added extra, it's fundamental to our success.

At Osborne Clarke we value difference and encourage applicants from all backgrounds. We want everyone to feel that OC is a place where you can be yourself and belong, and our range of interest groups and diversity networks – not to mention our great teams – are a part of making that a reality.

*Services in India are provided by a relationship firm