Planning Professional Support Lawyer London

Location: London
Salary: Highly Competitive
Job Type: Permanent

Job Ref. Number:MM060

Job Title: Planning Professional Support Lawyer
Location: London
Salary: Highly Competitive

The Company:

They are a premier City of London law firm with an uncompromising dedication to two goals - to always exceed their clients’ expectations and to provide a more attractive place to work than their competitors.

Their team is made up of 7 partners and 17 assistants including 3 trainees.

For planning, they have occupied the lead position for a decade in the major legal directories and have been rated number one law firm Planning team by Planning Magazine for each of the five year’s in which the survey has been conducted. They have won the Legal Business Planning and Environment team of the year award on three occasions, most recently for their work on the London Bridge Tower (“Shard of Glass”).

They have the largest team, the most partners and the most highly rated individuals of any City firm – all under one roof. This is a product of their having, for many years, focussed on creating and keeping a powerful, cohesive and versatile team. The team is drawn from a variety of different backgrounds, including public sector organisations and in house legal teams as well as law firms and their own internal training programme. The team includes a former planning officer with several London Boroughs, a senior planning inspector and a parliamentary agent as well as solicitors and barristers.

The Role:

The Group is seeking to appoint its first PSL. The successful candidate will operate within the Group but will work closely with others in the wider KM team (in particular existing PSLs within the Core Real Estate Group).

The role involves providing current awareness and drafting articles, creating, collecting and reviewing know-how, coordinating and developing training for the Group and their clients and assisting fee earners in the Group with technical queries and research.

Key responsibilities:
• Current awareness:
Ensuring that legal and regulatory developments are proactively disseminated to relevant fee-earners. The PSL will be expected to attend work group meetings and provide updates on current topics of relevance to the Group.

• Know-how collection:
Collecting know-how submissions from the Group for inclusion on the firm’s know-how database.

• Publications/ebriefs:
Assisting with internal and external publications as necessary. The PSL will also assist with the co-ordination and, as appropriate, writing of articles and client newsletters and assisting with presentations or training for clients.

• Training:
Assisting in co-ordination of the legal training requirements for lawyers in the Group. Assisting in the design and creation of training products for clients.

• Ad-hoc queries:
Advising fee earners regarding how best to resource and research particular ad-hoc enquiries and assisting with that research as required. The PSL will be available as a “sounding board” for difficult technical legal queries.

To provide the above functions, the PSL must make full use of the firm’s online knowledge management tools.

The Successful Candidate:

• This position would suit a Planning lawyer with at least 4 years PQE, wishing to make the move into professional support or an existing PSL in this area.
• The successful candidate will have a strong character and the ability to gain the confidence and trust of the partners. He/she will be technically excellent, have drive and enthusiasm to promote knowledge management tools within the Group and a service-orientated attitude.
• The individual could be an ex company secretary who has come from an in-house role with a high level of responsibility. Alternatively a background with a utility company, or senior civil servant within the cabinet office (DEFRA) ODPM undertaking a role requiring them to make law and policy.
• The position is part-time (3 days a week minimum).

NB: PQE levels are illustrative only and serve purely as a guide to candidates. Emerson Chase will welcome applications from individuals with more or less relevant experience than stated since such candidates may well be of interest to our clients.

Apply for Planning Professional Support Lawyer London