"The team is amazing; they always respond quickly and they are good to work with." – Chambers & Partners

We are looking for a Senior Associate to join our highly regarded Employment team. We are happy to consider candidates looking to be based in either London or Bristol, where we are ranked as a national leader outside of London by Chambers & Partners.

You would be joining one of the largest Employment teams in the UK, with the opportunity to provide advice on aspects of contentious and non-contentious employment law both nationwide and internationally. Our collegiate and supportive culture makes it a rewarding place to work and you will also have the opportunity to work with colleagues in our international offices.

The practice

The team provide a full service to clients including advice on HR support matters, employee disputes, Business Immigration, TUPE and general transactional advice, both in the UK and managing projects internationally

We have extensive experience in European employment law matters (being able to call on lawyers in our offices in nine other jurisdictions), allowing us to represent truly international clients. Our team also has experience of advising on transnational and national issues involving trade unions and employee representatives, which includes advising on collective bargaining and industrial action disputes.

The team is also well known for their work on complex issues such as restructuring, restrictive covenant work, reputational risk management and data privacy. We operate across a variety of sectors and are regarded as one of the 'go-to' firms across the financial services, telecoms, technology, recruitment, retail and media & advertising sectors.

We work for a fantastic range of leading clients such asVodafone, Ralph Lauren, Nomura, Western Power Distribution, Eurostar, United Airlines and Standard Chartered Bank. It's an exciting time for the team having recently celebrated a major client win, adding Diageo to their impressive client base.

Find more about our Employment practice using this link:

https://www.osborneclarke.com/services/employment-and-pensions/

The team

The UK team is led nationally by Band 1 rated partner Paul Killen. In addition to our Bristol and London offices the team are also based in our Thames Valley office. Overall the department is made up of 6 further partners, 1 legal director, 7 associate directors, 5 senior associates, 7 associates, 3 trainee solicitors, 2 paralegals and 1 solicitor apprentice.

The work

Recent work completed by the team includes:

We were appointed as Diageo's UK Employment Lawyers in December 2020. We are instructed to advise on all UK employment law matters, including advice on reward/incentives.

We have been engaged by a US NASDAQ listed specialist waste management company to lead and project manage multi-jurisdictional Covid-19 related projects relating to their employees over the last 12 months.

Assisting Wirecard with the wind down of its UK operations and the sale of part of its business to Railsbank.

Assisting a US-based global consultancy business with a large European restructuring and redundancy exercise.

We are on the panel for Nomura International plc and act for our client in a wide range of ongoing employment matters. This year, specific highlights included advising on a large-scale restructuring and various employee relations matters, and successfully acting for Nomura in employment tribunal claims.

We continue to advise a large US Bank on a number of key employment issues. For example, this year has involved advising ahead of the new laws in connection with regulatory laws and also advising them on D&I matters including the gender pay gap.

We advised a large Airline on a multitude of employment law issues relating to its UK workforce, and this year have advised them through the Covid crisis on all employment issues arising out of the restrictions on flying. This has involved complex discussions with Trade Unions, creative solutions to alternatives to redundancies and inevitable litigation as a consequence of some of these issues.

Technical skills and experience

Due to the technical nature of the practice, we are looking for evidence of experience of working on a range of complex Employment matters. As a guide, due to the nature of the work and the structure of the team, we are looking to appoint a Senior Associate in this area, although we will consider candidates with more or less experience.

Your career development

Like all our lawyers, you will benefit from our multi-award winning career development programme. At each stage of your career this provides you with:

• clear expectations of your role and what it takes to progress;
  • high quality clients and work, with early responsibility and client exposure;
  • thorough assessment and individual feedback from a range of experienced colleagues;
  • robust technical training with early skills based development, increasingly tailored to you; and
  • reward for your contribution, progression and potential, rather than PQE or tenure.

At Osborne Clarke we are happy to consider requests to work flexibly.

Salary and benefits

We offer competitive salaries and generous benefits.

For more information or to apply

At Osborne Clarke we welcome direct applications - if you would like any further information about the role, or the firm, we would be delighted to hear from you. Please contact, in complete confidence, Emily Webb (Recruitment Manager) on emily.webb@osborneclarke.com.

At Osborne Clarke, we are known for our open and inclusive culture. We believe that by investing in the diversity and wellbeing of our people, we create an environment where everyone can thrive and be the best that they can be. This means recognising that our people have lives and commitments outside of work. We have invested in connected working for our people and, where possible, we will accommodate flexible working for all our roles.