About Ashurst:

Ashurst is a leading global law firm with a history spanning almost 200 years, and clear strategy for our future growth. Our in-depth understanding of our clients and commitment to providing exceptional standards of service have seen us become a trusted adviser to local and global corporates, financial institutions and governments in all areas of commercial law. To find out more please visit here

In order to comply with regulatory and client requirements, Ashurst will undertake appropriate vetting of staff. When applicants accept a job offer, Ashurst, alongside a specialist provider, will undertake professional verification and background checks. These checks are only undertaken with consent, and in accordance with our legal and regulatory obligations

Business Area - Financial Management

Global Commercial team

Role: Commercial Finance Analyst - 12 month FTC

Location: Glasgow/UK

Hours of work -

Monday to Friday, 9:00am - 17:30pm, however flexibility will be required to work such hours as are necessary to perform duties in a global environment when international calls can occur outside of these hours.

• The successful candidate will:
  • Support the Commercial team
  • Co-ordinate working capital initiatives with Practice executives at a practice/division level; and
  • Own Activity reporting including reports on working capital during a month and chargeable hours.
• The primary focus of the Commercial Finance Analyst (CFA) is to support the firm's client/matter life cycle, including:
  • Matter tracking and monitoring
  • Producing financial reports and analysis;
  • Matter pricing and resource planning - including reporting to business managers around compliance with pricing governance framework.
  • Quality assurance for matter set up and commercial terms for high value matters and commercial arrangements
  • The role requires extensive interaction with stakeholders in the legal and central teams and therefore a professional, confident, enthusiastic and solution based approach is essential.

Main responsibilities:

• Pricing support to the Pricing team or Business managers at peak times, as well as providing matter/client reporting which allows for timely review of issues with partners.
• Supporting the Commercial & Pricing manager with the pricing of matters and large opportunities, attendance at kick off meetings and overall analysis and presentation of pricing proposals.
• Maintenance of tools to ensure these are updated regularly whilst also providing ongoing support to users where required. This may also include building or scoping of additional tools as time progresses.
• Structuring and developing presentation material to communicate commercial projects to the wider business including the Executive team and Senior management
• Business manager or Pricing team day to day support. This will include first review of monthly profit and loss analysis, review of partner financial reports prior to assist with discussion with Practice and Division heads, assistance with the yearly budgeting process and financial plans (as required and working capital management review).
• Where possible, assist with Ad Hoc requests from Practice and Division heads. This is generally additional analysis around monthly numbers or partner performance.
• Oversee setting the monthly billing targets for each division and estimating revenue forecasting for the executive team.
• Work with relevant financial teams to drive the annual rate reviews across all jurisdictions (and working with EMEA/US counterpart/s where required for consistency with clients).
• Produce ad hoc strategic financial analysis to assist with cross functional and Commercial management initiatives. Some examples would be working on business services transformation projects and within Commercial management specifically assisting with client, industry and firm reporting improvements.
• Contribute to the continuous improvement of processes and share information of Commercial team developments with business teams
• Prepare and deliver training of financial tools and reports to legal and other business teams

Risk and Control: Ensure that all activities and duties are carried out in full compliance with our regulatory requirements and internal policies.

Essential skills and experience:

• Analytical and numerate.
• Excellent time management skills with the ability to prioritise tasks that may have tight and competing deadlines
• Self-motivated with excellent interpersonal skills, including the ability to communicate effectively across all levels of an organisation both verbally and in a written manner.
• Intermediate to advanced knowledge of programs in the Microsoft suite including Excel (vlookups and pivot tables), Power BI and a working knowledge of Word and PowerPoint.
• Experience with 3e or similar and IBM TM1 also preferable.
• Ability to identify and escalate areas of risk to the divisional business managers.
• Prepared to travel as and when required.
• Willingness to perform a range of tasks from routine administrative tasks through to bespoke activities of a more complex nature as directed by the Divisional Business Manager
• Previous experience in a business partnering role/professional services environment desirable.