Employment Associate/Senior Associate 4+ PQE

Location

Birmingham, Bristol or Leeds

Description

Make a Real Impact

Bevan Brittan is a leading commercial law firm. Alongside our recognised expertise in housing, local government, and health and social care, we are specialists in the construction, energy and resource management, higher education and financial services sectors.

Supported by our valued business services professionals, our award-winning and growing legal teams provide almost 2,000 organisations with commercial, corporate, property, finance, regulatory, employment and litigation (commercial and clinical negligence) legal and advisory services.

As a responsible business, we embrace four values: Relationships, Reputation, Responsible and Results. These give us a sense of purpose. They influence the decisions we make and how we work with each other. Importantly, they motivate us to deliver meaningful outcomes for our clients and the communities that we're part of.

Consistently recognised as one of The Times Best Law Firms and highly ranked across the legal directories, we are proud of our hard-earned reputation. Our 2023/24 financial results confirmed both revenue and profit growth for an eleventh consecutive year, ensuring our ability to continue investing in our people.

Looking to the future, we're targeting ambitious growth and success. And we're looking for the best people to be part of it.

Join a team of experts and progressive thinkers

Our Employment, Pensions and Immigration team continues to be a market leader across a range of sectors including the local and central government, health and care insurance and finance, commercial, higher education and housing sectors.

The team operates on a truly national basis, providing our lawyers with the opportunity to work with a variety of colleagues and clients. Acting mainly for employers, our roster of clients includes national and multi-national organisations, and we support them to improve their employment practices and manage workforce issues, as well as defending employment claims and seeking to mitigate risks for clients. We act alongside our complementary multi-disciplinary teams such as information law, commercial and regulatory teams.

Bevan Brittan has strong recognition in the independent legal directories - Chambers & Partners and Legal 500. In both guides we are consistently ranked in the top tier for our practices across the UK, with multiple individuals recognised as leading lawyers.

We have worked with the firm for over 20 years and are never disappointed with the service and outcomes. The lawyers are responsive and helpful, making stressful situations easy to manage. Legal 500, 2026

The Role

We are looking for either an Associate or Senior Associate (4+ PQE) to join us, based in our Bristol, Birmingham or Leeds office (with flexible hybrid working), ideally with experience in one or more of the sectors above.

As a member of the national employment practice the primary focus of your role will be working in the following sectors: local and central government, health, commercial services, and housing but with opportunities to work in higher education and financial services too.

Building relationships, both externally with our clients and across our internal teams, is key. In this role, you will have the opportunity to work with regulatory and commercial colleagues. You will ideally have some TUPE and transactional experience.

You will also have the opportunity to undertake a variety of work-types from transactional, to advisory support, to contentious work. The depth and breadth of the markets in which we operate will provide the opportunity and flexibility to work on novel and complex employment law issues.

With your skill and expertise, it is envisaged that you would:

• Manage your own caseload across both contentious and non-contentious work areas
• Work with and support a number of our partner leads and colleagues across all four of our offices
• Provide management and supervisory support to junior colleagues
• Support on training and client relationship management

What we are looking for from you

The successful candidate will be involved in providing sound, commercial employment advice and would ideally have some or all of the following skill set/experience:

• A broad range of employment experience, ideally gained across one or more of our key markets above
• Advising on restructures/redundancy processes
• Advising on employee relations issues including settlement negotiations
• Strong litigation and/or advocacy experience and a capability and desire to manage complex, high profile litigation as part of a team
• TUPE experience including drafting/negotiating related warranties and indemnities and advising on workforce aspects of commercial transactions, including information and consultation processes
• Undertaking transactional due diligence, often as part of a wider corporate or commercial transaction with multidisciplinary teams
• Reviewing/drafting policies
• Delivering training and actively contributing towards business development activities
• Supervision of junior colleagues
• Good client management skills and an interest in business development

We offer a structured career pathway to meet both your and our needs.

Work with approachable people

When we ask colleagues what makes Bevan Brittan a great place to work, the most popular thing they say is "the people". The overwhelming consensus is that we make time for each other. We welcome questions and support each other. Naturally, we look for new colleagues who align with our values.

Supported to be your best

Hybrid working

We operate a hybrid working model based on the needs of our clients, teams and people. Our core business hours are 9am - 5:15pm Monday to Friday, but we're open to our people working more flexibly around those times and welcome a conversation with you if you have any questions about this. We try to offer you the flexibility to work your week in a way that suits you.

Learning, Development & Progression

We're committed to supporting your professional and personal development needs.This means that we offer a range of tailored training courses and you will have lots of opportunity to learn from those around you. We actively encourage progression and this is reflected in our annual review and promotion processes. You will be supported by your line manager to achieve your full potential.

Wellbeing

As a Bevan Brittan employee, you'll have access to a variety of services that support your wellbeing. We've pledged our commitment to The Mindful Business Charter and lots of our people contribute to our Wellbeing Responsible Business strand, which organises an annual calendar of wellbeing events and initiatives.

Benefits

• A minimum of 25 days holiday (plus the option to buy up to an additional 5 days)
• Discretionary bonus scheme
• Generous pension scheme
• Private medical insurance through Vitality
• Biennial private health assessment through Nuffield Health
• Life assurance
• Access to Employee Assistance Programme
• Cycle to work scheme

Embracing our differences and valuing inclusion

Our shared aim is that everyone is welcome and can feel comfortable being themselves at Bevan Brittan. To support this, we actively value and promote equality, diversity and inclusion in everything that we do. You'll be empowered and supported through our employee led networks, diverse colleagues, and a broad range of firmwide initiatives.

Recognising the unique contributions that a diverse workforce can bring to our business, we encourage applications from people of all backgrounds. We take great pride in being a Disability Confident Employer. If you need any adjustments throughout the recruitment process or have any questions, please get in touch with our recruitment team by emailing

Acting responsibly, now and for the future

To us, being a responsible business is second nature; a core part of Bevan Brittan's identity. Our colleagues are heavily involved in shaping and delivering activity across the four pillars of our Responsible Business strategy : Community Engagement; Environmental Sustainability; Equality, Diversity & Inclusion; and Wellbeing.

Our people deliver pro bono legal work for charities and not-for-profit organisations. We play an active role in our local communities and donated £100,000 across our four regional office charities last year. We are also proudly carbon neutral. We've achieved the UN's Climate Neutral Now accreditation and our environmental sustainability plan focuses on achieving our net zero carbon target by 2040.

Collectively, the four pillars ensure we look after our colleagues' wellbeing; offer an environment in which everyone can progress on merit, give something back to the communities in which we work; and protect the environment.