Knowledge Counsel - Finance

Mayer Brown is an international law firm positioned to represent the world’s major corporations, funds, and financial institutions in their most important and complex transactions and disputes. We are recognized by our clients as strategic partners with deep commercial instincts and a commitment to creatively anticipating their needs and delivering excellence in everything we do.

We are a collegial and collaborative firm where highly motivated individuals with an unwavering commitment to excellence receive the opportunity, support, and development they need to grow, thrive, and realise their greatest potential all while supporting the Firm’s client service principles of excellence, strategic partnership, commercial instinct, integrated strengths, innovation, and collaboration across our international firm.

If you enjoy working with team members whose defining characteristics are exceptional client service, initiative, professionalism, responsiveness, and adaptability, you may be the person we are seeking to join our Knowledge Management department in our London office as a Finance Knowledge Counsel. 

Reporting to:

The role will report into the Director of Knowledge Management (Europe & Asia) and indirectly to the firm’s global Senior Director of Knowledge Management and partners from the London Finance team.

The role will also work closely with the team’s current Finance Knowledge Lawyer, as well as Knowledge Counsel/Lawyers across the wider firm.

The Role:

Finance Knowledge Counsel

We are offering an excellent opportunity for an experienced finance lawyer, currently in a senior knowledge role, or a senior fee-earner with a track record of engaging in knowledge management activities, to join our market-leading Finance team in London.

The Finance team serves many of the world’s most successful banks, funds, agencies, asset managers and companies  and is recognised as a global market leader in structured finance. With finance lawyers across the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, our balanced and integrated practice encompasses all the focused skill sets that our clients demand – from cross-border acquisition finance and international capital markets work to real estate, project finance, structured finance and derivatives.  Chambers & Partners identifies the Finance team as a “banking ‘powerhouse’ for its sheer manpower and global coverage”.

The successful applicant will need be technically excellent, consistently produce work to a high professional standard, as-well as being self-motivated and possess a very pro-active attitude leading on knowledge-related initiatives independently for the team.

Our Finance Knowledge Counsel are part of a dynamic, supportive and evolving global Knowledge Management team of more than 26 Knowledge Counsel/Lawyers and Knowledge Specialists and Executives located across the globe, whose purpose is to help transform the practice of capturing, curating, disseminating, and enabling the effective use of legal and commercial knowledge and data across the global firm to make it better and easier for our lawyers and our clients to leverage our intellectual capital and derive the greatest value from it. 

Hours:

9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. with flexibility in accordance with the needs of the business.  Happy to talk flexible working.

Knowledge Management Strategy

• Leading, advising and generating ideas on the development and delivery of the team’s knowledge management (“KM”) strategy to align with the team’s business objectives and the firm’s global KM strategy.
• Clearly and consistently communicating the KM strategy to the team.
• Regularly engaging and working with partners and fee-earners to inform priorities and strategic decisions on KM initiatives for the team.
• Leading and closely collaborating on the direction and prioritisation of workflows with the team’s current London Finance Knowledge Lawyer.

Legal Knowledge

• Monitoring and keeping the team up-to-date and ahead of the curve on important developments in relevant law or business environment.
• Leading on the drafting, updating and maintenance of the team’s knowledge resources, in particular standard forms and precedent documents, to ensure the team has access to first rate materials.
• Developing materials to assist the team in making deal processes more efficient and streamlined.
• Capturing, curating and maintaining, via the firm’s “Global Knowledge Bank” (GKB) and the team’s intranet site, market-leading knowledge resources, which include in particular standard forms, precedent documents, best practices, how-to memos, legal research documents and other relevant resources.
• Advising and acting as a “sounding board” for partners and fee-earners on technical legal queries and, where appropriate, giving advice directly to clients.
• Advising on and mitigating risk for the team by keeping abreast of legal and regulatory developments that may impact the team’s practice, working closely with its risk partners and the firm’s Legal Risk Management team.
• Working with partners and fee-earners to create new and improve existing processes to capture practice-related knowledge content and promote the sharing of information, knowledge and experience generally across the team.

Lawyer Training and Technical Expertise

• Working with partners and fee-earners in collaboration with the London Learning and Development team to identify and plan training for trainees, newly qualified lawyers and core practice-related training at all levels of seniority, including ideas for the utilisation of technology and different formats to deliver an engaging training programme for the team.
• Capturing valuable training materials and making them easily accessible to the team.
• Developing and delivering legal training for fee-earners to assist them with locating practice-related internal and external team knowledge.
• Supporting partners and fee-earners with their preparation of materials for internal and external client training.
• Where appropriate, delivering training to clients directly in conjunction with partners and fee-earners.

Client-Facing Initiatives

• Monitoring and analysing key legal, market and industry developments and trends and clearly communicating to the team how these will impact the practice and its clients.
• Identifying “hot topics” and opportunities for the team to use its internal know-how, expertise and insights to deepen client relationships and sharpen its profile with key clients.
• Drafting, researching and assisting partners and fee-earners with the legal content for tailored client alerts, articles, thought leadership pieces, webinars, seminars and other client-facing products.
• Working with the Business Development & Marketing team and the Client Development, Industries & Markets team to identify client-facing opportunities and initiatives.

Innovation, Legal Technology and Legal Project Management

• Identifying and supporting the team to identify and implement internal efficiencies through the use of legal technology.
• Working with the firm’s Legal Innovation & Strategy team to explore cutting edge approaches and legal tech (including the use of AI/data) to drive more efficient client service delivery for the team.
• Engaging with the firm’s Legal Project Management team on legal process improvement and project management initiatives for the team.
• Where relevant, working with the firm’s Document Automation team, to identify suitable knowledge resources for automation.

Other

• Participating in regular meetings of the firm’s KM function and liaising regularly with other Knowledge Counsel/Lawyers supporting other practices/industry sectors at the firm to facilitate the sharing of best practice and knowledge.
• Pro-actively develop relationships and collaborate with lawyers and business services teams across the firm, connecting legal and practical expertise relevant to the team.
• Providing other knowledge support to the team as may be assigned by the London Finance partners or the Director of Knowledge Management (Europe & Asia).

A qualified Solicitor (England & Wales) with 10 years or more post qualification experience.

The candidate must have attained his or her law degree from a reputed institution, achieving a minimum grade of 2.1 or equivalent.

Experience, skills and personal attributes:

• Considerable experience practicing as a finance lawyer for an international top-ranked law firm.
• Excellent technical legal knowledge and expertise in a broad range of finance matters.
• High professional standards with a passion for delivering a quality product.
• Excellent drafting and research skills.
• Well-developed organisation skills and attention to detail.
• Understanding of different learning processes and methods of training.
• Excellent people skills and a good, clear communication style.
• Ability to work effectively within an established, close-knit team.
• Ability to confidently interact with people at all levels and build credibility and relationships in all areas of the business.
• A commercial and pragmatic outlook.
• Self-motivated and possesses a very pro-active, independent attitude to owning and progressing workflows.

At Mayer Brown, we are committed to creating an inclusive work environment that offers our people the opportunity and support they need to succeed.

Our culture promotes mutual respect, acceptance, cooperation and productivity among people from all backgrounds and values different perspectives and ideas.

One of our core values at Mayer Brown is to promote diversity and inclusion at all levels within the business which is actively supported by our diversity networks - LGBT+, Fusion (Race & Ethnicity), Multi-faith, Women, Enable (Disability) and Work and Me (Family).

We are happy to discuss any reasonable adjustments that individuals may require throughout the recruitment process and once they have joined the Firm.

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