Senior Associate

Fox Williams offers a unique opportunity to advance your career in a personable, progressive and entrepreneurial environment. Our people and culture are important to us and central to everything we do. We continually strive to create and maintain a friendly and supportive environment for our staff. You will quickly get to know everyone from the Senior Partner to the most junior staff. Whilst we are recognised for our strong culture and investing in our people, we are equally well known for our high profile matters, quality of our work and solving our clients’ most complex legal issues.

Fox Williams is committed to creating a more diverse workforce which better reflects the demographics of society and the broad range of clients for whom we work. We collaborate with our recruitment agents to seek a broad talent pool for all of our roles. We are passionate about working in an inclusive environment and successful candidates will be required to uphold this.

We are looking for an ambitious Senior Associate or Legal Director with at least 5+ years PQE to join our top ranked Employment Department to work predominantly for senior executive clients, with some work for employers.

The Firm’s employment practice is substantial and is well known for its expert advice to both employers and senior executives, with employer clients currently making up the largest segment of the clientele.

The Senior Executive practice has been growing steadily in recent years and gaining greater recognition, and we have now made a strategic decision to expand this practice further, and to grow the team through the recruitment of employment lawyers who wish to focus mainly on advising this clientele.

This role is for either a Senior Associate or a Legal Director to work closely with the partners to build up this practice area over the longer term. There are excellent opportunities for career progression for the right candidate, including up to partnership.

Typical matters would include advising on sensitive exits, negotiated settlements, remuneration issues, non-compete provisions, governance queries, regulatory concerns and related investigations and disciplinary processes, grievances, drafting and reviewing employment contracts and remuneration packages, disputes and tribunal and high court litigation.

The Senior Executive practice of the Firm is distinguished by having the capability to advise senior individuals across a range of sectors and also legal disciplines. We are particularly interested in candidates with experience of advising clients in the Financial Services and Professional Services sectors, as well as those who have advised clients in plc and listed companies. Experience of advising Founders, and Founder/Owners would also be very welcome. While the role is focused on employment law, the successful candidate will also work closely with lawyers in other teams internally, gaining exposure to a wide range of other legal disciplines such as partnership, regulatory, tax and incentives, disputes, corporate and data protection.

We believe that employment lawyer skill sets are strengthened by advising both employers and employees, and so the role will also involve advising some employers although the main focus will be on the Senior Executive practice.

The successful candidate will enjoy a close working relationship with senior and well-known partners in the field, and will have a focus on nurturing their learning and development, while enjoying full support to build their own practice and profile. The candidate will be introduced to a range of clients and will join a team which values and encourages both technical and skills-based development.

Since a key objective of the appointment is to grow the practice, the role involves business development and marketing as part of a team working to a well-developed business plan, and participation in the firm’s cross-department sector groups (financial services, professional services and tech/fintech);

Candidates will need to demonstrate strong knowledge and skills in employment law, with relevant experience that may include:

• acting for, or having meaningful exposure to matters involving, senior executives, partners, founders, C-suite individuals or other key stakeholders;
• advising on senior-level appointment and exit issues, including service agreements, settlement agreements, restrictive covenants, confidentiality, bonus/commission, equity or incentive arrangements and reputational considerations;
• supporting senior executives through investigations (whether disciplinary, whistleblowing, grievance or regulatory in nature), and through any of the processes that may follow, including eg: disciplinary processes, grievance processes, remuneration reviews;
• handling negotiations with employers and their advisers, and working collaboratively with specialists in tax, incentives, corporate, disputes, regulatory or partnership where a matter requires a joined-up approach;
• advising on mixed employment and regulatory issues especially relating to the SMCR and in particular NFM;
• working as part of a team on complex, high value tribunal and High Court litigation;
• bringing sound judgement, discretion and confidence when dealing with sensitive, time-critical or high-profile employment matters;
• taking part in business development initiatives, ideally with a focus on the Senior Executive market; and
• balancing senior executive work with advising some employers.

Please note that although the role involves working mainly for senior executives, candidates will be considered if they have strong employment law skills gained from working mainly for employers, and they have now decided to take their career in this new direction.