Construction Knowledge Counsel

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 Construction 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 Construction & Engineering team. The role will also work closely with Knowledge Counsel/Lawyers and business services teams across the wider firm.

The Department:

We are offering an excellent opportunity for an experienced construction 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 Construction & Engineering team in London.

The Construction & Engineering team has a world-class reputation and some of the industry’s leading lawyers. We assist our clients with strategies for the procurement of major projects and the resolution of substantial disputes. With lawyers across Asia, Europe and the Americas, we advise governments, owners, operators, concessionaires, lenders, project sponsors, contractors, consultants and insurers. Our clients are able to draw upon our many years of experience to support their businesses, whatever their role may be. They instruct us in relation to projects that set benchmarks in terms of scale, complexity and risk allocation.

We have represented clients on hundreds of projects in numerous jurisdictions and in every continent. We are recognised as leading practitioners in each of our domestic markets and one of the pre-eminent global firms advising on the issues arising out of every type of construction and engineering project. We have extensive experience of all the major international and regional standard forms of contract and every method of procurement. We advise on front-end contract strategy and contract documentation, risk management and dispute resolution.

The successful applicant will need to 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 Construction 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 strategy.
• Clearing 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.
• Helping improve and develop the team’s internal knowledge processes and systems including data collection.

Legal Knowledge

• Monitoring and keeping the team up-to-date and ahead of the curve on important developments in relevant law or business environment.
• Advising on and continuing to develop the department's expertise in relation to the new Building Safety Act requirements.
• Leading on the drafting, updating and maintenance of the team’s knowledge resources, in particular standard forms and precedent documents (including the team's precedent building contracts, forms of appointments, collateral warranties and ancillary construction documents), to ensure the team has access to first rate materials.
• Developing materials to assist the team in making 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 a culture of sharing 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 & Development team to identify, plan and deliver training for trainees and newly-qualified lawyers (including training to provide an introductory grounding in construction law practice and principles) 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.
• Developing valuable training materials and making them 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

• Leading, advising and generating ideas on the development of a digital marketing strategy, to continue to raise the team’s profile and brand with clients.
• 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.
• Horizon scanning and 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.
• Help field and assist with general client requests from the team, as appropriate and when needed.
• Working with the Business Development & Marketing team and the Client Development, Industries and Markets team to identify and collaborate on client-facing opportunities and initiatives, including where appropriate, interacting with clients directly in conjunction with partners and fee-earners.

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 developing relationships and collaborating 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 Construction & Engineering 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:

• Minimum of 10 years’ experience practising as a construction lawyer for an international top-ranked law firm.
• Excellent technical legal knowledge and expertise in a broad range of construction matters.
• Proficient with construction industry standard forms including the JCT, NEW and FIDIC suites of contract. Proficient with EPC and EPCM contracting.
• High professional standards with a passion for delivering a quality product.
• Excellent drafting and research skills.
• Well-developed organisational 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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