Senior Associate - Corporate - London

The role

An opportunity has arisen to expand our Corporate group.

We need an ambitious, experienced and entrepreneurial Corporate Solicitor to join our London office, based in the City.

In London, we are a growing team of currently 10 corporate lawyers (as part of a national practice of approximately 90 corporate lawyers) with approximately 140 staff in London overall. You will get to advise clients ranging from start-ups and spinouts, through to substantial companies, management teams and institutions on a broad range of corporate issues and transactions. Much of your work will have an international aspect.

The key day-to-day roles the candidate will undertake are:

• A broad mix of corporate work including M&A, corporate finance, private equity and venture capital, fundraising, shareholder agreements and joint ventures.
• As well as general corporate advisory work.

The person

You will be a minimum of 4+ years' qualified with experience gained in a City or regional firm. You will have a good background in transactional work and be able to demonstrate both working as part of a team on transactions, and/or managing transactions largely unsupervised. You will also be able to demonstrate an understanding of, and an interest in, helping to grow a team and a practice.  With lots to go for from the London office, this will provide plenty of opportunity for your career to grow and develop with the office, supported by an ambitious and progressive law firm.

Given the responsibilities of this role, it’s likely that you will be/have:

• Ability to confidently run transactional work as the day-to-day fee earner on the deal (with appropriate senior support)
• Strong interpersonal skills and team skills, with a desire to mentor and coach more junior members of the team
• Strong experience in M&A work
• Experience with investment rounds, VC funds and VC backed businesses would be beneficial
• An interest in getting involved in a wide variety of corporate work
• Willingness to initiate and participate in marketing and business development activities
• Technically strong with excellent drafting and verbal/written communication skills and attention to detail
• Good time and paper management skills
• Some familiarity with the Technology and Life Sciences, and sectors
• Good academics

The team

You will work closely with Thilo Schneider (Head of Corporate, London) and Edward Sloan (Head of VC & Investments, London) as well as being part of a busy corporate and commercial team that operates across one national service line (“NSL”) and across our seven offices and internationally with our global network of best-friend firms, led collectively by James Hunter (corporate head) and by Kevin Lowe (NSL head). The NSL is supported by professional support lawyers.

The package

As you’d expect, we offer a competitive salary and a wide range of benefits. You can find out more about our core staff benefits here.

The firm

Mills & Reeve is centred on achieving more for clients, their businesses and the wider communities we serve.

Our clients and their industries benefit from our knowledge and learning – on everything from wellbeing, diversity and inclusion to global trends. The wider community benefits from a focus on sustainability in client and business decisions.

Clients get a consistent experience with no surprises – we tell them what they need to know, when they need to know it. Our sector and market expertise helps us understand clients’ issues. And our technology and innovations help them achieve more with less effort.

We build personal relationships, with advice individually tailored to individual need. And if clients need things we don’t offer, we draw on our network to give recommendations.

Our 1,250 plus people and over 750 lawyers share one vision – achieving more for clients.

By joining Mills & Reeve, you’ll have the chance to build your skills and experience within a firm that’s not only ranked in the top 50 UK law firms, but also one that truly values their people. Our mantra is “Achieve more. Together.”, which we feel embodies our purpose and is more than just a catchphrase!

We’ve been listed in the Best Companies to Work For list the last 20 years - the only law firm to have achieved this, and we hold Platinum Investors in People status, something which only 6% of 50,000 assessed organisations achieve. We’ve also been ranked in the top 10 of RollOnFriday’s Best Law Firms To Work At list for the past eight years, taking the top spot in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

Don’t just take our word for it though. Have a read through our People Perspectives to find out more about some of our team and their experiences at Mills & Reeve.

Pre-employment screening

If we make you an offer for a role, we will conduct a range of pre-employment screening. This will include, but is not limited to, a basic DBS check, right to work check, address verification, any disciplinary history recorded with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and a self-declaration to assess your character and suitability for the role. Full details of our screening process are available on request.

Disclosure and barring service check and security clearance

This post is also subject to a satisfactory response from the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) (to check for any previous criminal convictions and cautions) and, given the nature of the work-type, you may also be required to undergo national security vetting to SC level – the latter can be undertaken following commencement of employment.

And finally

Everyone at Mills & Reeve brings a unique perspective and ideas to the team and we do everything we can to help each person to thrive. We’re committed to providing an inclusive and supportive working environment, are happy to consider flexible working arrangements, and want to achieve the right balance for both our people and the firm. We encourage everyone to ask if they feel they need any workplace adjustments, and will do our best to support with these.

Promoting equality and diversity across our firm is a key pillar of our strategy, and our five staff networks are an integral part of this. To find out more about our diversity and inclusion work,  visit our webpage here.