Hiring – Senior Commercial Disputes Lawyer

The person we’re looking for

We are a young, dynamic and friendly boutique law firm and we’re looking to add another great disputes lawyer to our growing team.

You might be interested in joining us if you want to have it all:

High quality, interesting work
Completely flexible and agile working as the norm
Great colleagues and culture
First class support
Freedom of working location: from our main office in south west London, serviced offices across central London or home

We are committed to equality of opportunity, diversity and inclusion, and we welcome applications regardless of race, age, disability, sex, religion or belief, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, marriage and civil partnerships.

Does this sound like you?

You’ll already be a successful senior solicitor, whether in a leading practice or in-house. You’ll be an experienced disputes lawyer with great technical and interpersonal skills, comfortable advising on disputes across a range of values.

Strong experience in contractual and/or shareholder disputes would be helpful, but we welcome applications from lawyers with any contentious specialism.

As with any Bellevue Law lawyer, you will have excellent technical abilities, client care and ethical standards and interpersonal skills, and be trusted as an advisor, capable of developing relationships with, and attracting work from, your clients.

A bit about us

“The team offers an 'amazing service and a personal touch.'” The Legal 500, 2020.

Bellevue Law is a commercial litigation and employment boutique founded six years ago to offer clients the quality and expertise of a City firm, cost-effectively. Our lawyers are alumni of international firms including Allen & Overy, Dentons, Eversheds Sutherland, Freshfields, Simmons & Simmons, McDermott Will & Emery, Mayer Brown, and Withers. You can read more about our firm on our About Us page.

We are proud that our track record over the past six years shows that we are capable of handling really substantial disputes, including complex, multi-million Euro international arbitrations. Our highly skilled team has also guided clients through several complex technical disputes, including multi-jurisdictional and multi-party cases, injunctions and complex disputes as to valuation of damages.

We also regularly provide advice and representation in smaller – but often still complex – matters that require care and attention, often referred to us by major firms. Colleagues at City firms know that we are a safe pair of hands and that we won’t compromise standards of advice, representation and service for their clients: allowing them to focus on their own priorities and the kind of work that they do best.

Our clients include household names, listed companies and state owned entities, and we also have several clients in the tech sector, so have a nuanced understanding of the issues which arise in this area.

Your motivations for looking for a new role

Recent events have caused many people to reassess their working life. Perhaps you’d like more flexibility and control than the traditional law firm model can offer? You might not want to return to your commute after lockdown and be able to work at home or close by, or you might be tired of chargeable hour targets?
Perhaps you’d like to have interesting and challenging work but simply want to reduce or flex the hours you’re working?
Perhaps you have clients that you like working for, but your current firm doesn’t love them as much as you do? You might be tired of being conflicted by colleagues in other departments, or you might be able to win more work from them with flexibility around fees?
Perhaps you’ve been a partner, or looked at the partnership route, and it doesn’t appeal at this stage in your life and career? Maybe you’d like to focus on your client work with no managerial or administrative responsibilities?
Perhaps you’d like to be rewarded financially for times when you are working hard, and able to take time away from work when you need to?

Why Bellevue Law might be an attractive option

Our people and our clients have highlighted the following as the keys to our success to date:

Expert, friendly colleagues and a great culture

We are a small, perfectly formed and happy team. Bellevue Law has a track record of hiring great lawyers with excellent technical and soft skills because we allow our lawyers the flexibility to manage their work alongside their other obligations, without sacrificing the quality of that work.

We have a friendly and inclusive culture, and all get along well – chemistry is vital in a small but well-formed firm. We have regular social and training events and during lockdown we’ve got together weekly for a virtual coffee and catch-up as well as sending the team lockdown care packages, including flowers and deli treats, from the local businesses which are our neighbours on Wandsworth’s Northcote Road.

We pride ourselves on being an ethical business, and were the first UK law firm to be awarded the Good Business Charter, which recognises responsible business practices. We are supporters of local charities, including our longstanding partner Home-Start Wandsworth.

If you’d like to know more about our team and culture, take a look at our Instagram page.

Clients and support

Our clients include household names, fast-growth technology clients and entrepreneurs, and employees from mid-level professionals to chief executives and founders. In our November 2019 survey, they rated us at an average of 9.7/10 when asked how likely they were to recommend us to a friend or colleague.

We are fast-growing and often win work which we share around to balance workloads. Equally, you’ll be comfortable either that you can generate your own work now or that you’d be willing to invest the time it needs to make your new practice work. We are confident that excellent lawyers will win work and earn what they need to using our model; all of our lawyers have made a successful transition from larger firms to our more entrepreneurial environment. We’ll put in place all the support you need to achieve that too, including providing bespoke specialist professional marketing support.

We find that lawyers who join us are often surprised at how our model allows them to flourish, and would be happy to put you in touch with one of our several lawyers who has made the move for a confidential chat. This role will be right for the kinds of lawyers who want to both do interesting legal work and get involved in winning that work too, and we will absolutely support you to make this work.

Systems

We don’t believe in compromising on systems or processes. IT systems can be an endless source of frustration for professionals, so we have invested in excellent systems. Our team can log in from any device anywhere and instantly (and securely) access all of the firm’s documents. We want to make our lawyers’ working lives as straightforward as possible, and contacts at larger firms are impressed with how well our systems work.

We also provide administrative, regulatory, and marketing support as well as access to research tools, team training and social events.

True flexibility: no chargeable hours targets and work where you like

We know that flexible working goes far beyond working from home. Our lawyers don’t have billings targets. We employ exceptional lawyers with the expectation that they have the skills and diligence to manage their work effectively and fulfil their commitments to their clients, and they meet that expectation without fail. Beyond that, they are free to take on as much or as little work as they like.

Equally, while we like to get together for training and social events, nobody is required to come into the office on particular days or at set times, saving hours of commuting and allowing us to manage work and life. Our team is free to work from home, from clients’ sites, at our main office on Wandsworth’s Northcote Road or from a range of serviced offices across central London.

Our experience is that flexibility makes for a happy team, which makes for great work and happy clients.

Next steps

Having a conversation with us is often the best way to explore whether we’re right for each other. We can explore your motivations for a move together and openly and then, if both sides’ expectations look likely to be met, we can take things forward from there.

If this sounds of interest to you, our founder, Florence Brocklesby, would be happy to meet you in confidence for a coffee - two metres apart! - in the City or West End, nearer to home if it’s South-West London, or over Zoom if you prefer.

Get in touch at [email protected] or on 020 3432 2110.

Click here to contact Florence

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Authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, SRA number 628538 (Wandsworth Office).
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