Governance & Risk Team Leader in London

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The Team

Governance & Risk (G&R) engage with both the firm's legal and business service divisions, across our offices, to promote the benefits of good risk management, drive continuous improvement to enhance the client experience and to ensure compliance with our legal and regulatory obligations. The team operates across two teams which work closely together:

• The Operations Team - which this role sits in, deals with a wide range of compliance queries on a daily basis as well as managing our information security management and quality management systems.
• The Complaints and Claims Unit - deals with claims and circumstances, client complaints and related improvements.

The Role

This is an exciting opportunity for someone who is currently a senior analyst in a law firm risk and compliance team, who is seeking to expand their managerial experience and also their skills and experience in this varied generalist role. This is a hands-on role as a member of the busy G&R team who are responsible for the development and maintenance of effective risk management and compliance standards at Capsticks. The primary focus of this role will be managing and supervising routine risk & compliance queries and the work conducted by more junior members of the team.

As an experienced professional, you shall work with senior members of the G&R Team to ensure compliance with the regulatory requirements of the Solicitors Regulation Authority and ICO, whilst developing and maintaining the firm's accreditations: ISO9001 (quality assurance) and ISO27001 (information security). You will work on short-term queries and several long-term projects at the same time, which means you will need effective communication and workload management, prioritisation and organisation skills, project and stakeholder management skills and an ability to manage competing priorities.

You will also be expected to engage firmwide across our offices to promote an understanding of risk to drive the compliance and quality agenda with the objective being to improve our clients' experience and protect the firm's interests. The Governance & Risk team leader will report to the Governance & Risk Manager.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

• Managing and organising the G&R coordinator team, which assists with the frontline responses to queries made to G&R. Ensuring the team deals with queries quickly and efficiently and all records are maintained and updated.
• Providing supervision, guidance and monitoring to junior team members, including advising on complex compliance queries which have been escalated.
• Managing key compliance processes such as information barriers, bogus firm checks, emails sent to personal addresses, data subject access requests and declarations of personal interests.
• Acting as a trusted point of contact for colleagues across the firm on compliance matters.
• Providing clear, pragmatic and high quality advice on all compliance and regulatory queries and Capsticks' policies and processes. Queries will be focused on (but are not limited to) conflicts, AML/CDD, SRA compliance, and data protection.
• Interpreting regulations and policies to make informed, risk-based decisions and escalating complex issues where appropriate.
• Researching and keeping up to date with regulatory changes and embedding updates across the firm, including supporting the drafting of internal policies.
• Building strong internal relationships to champion a positive compliance culture and risk management to help improve the efficiency of risk management and controls across the business.
• Attend legal divisional meetings to report on governance and risk issues.
• Organising and delivering training to new joiners and on an ad hoc basis when compliance training is required, ensuring efficient and timely reporting on outstanding training. This also includes onboarding new members within G&R.
• As part of the team, maintain and deliver our quality management and information security management systems, including undertaking policy reviews, file and process audits and preparing for and participating in external audits.
• Contributing to wider compliance and firm wide projects and supporting initiatives across the firm.
• Preparing and supervising compliance reports and committee papers, ensuring these are completed in good time ahead of deadlines, as well as attending and presenting papers at the relevant committees.
• Creating and managing a planned program of compliance communications to the firm.
• Assisting with annual insurance renewal, including coordinating internal stakeholders to ensure proposals are prepared in good time.

Experience

• Educated to degree standard or equivalent work experience.
• Strong, proven experience of working in a compliance team in a law firm and knowledge of the requirements of the SRA Code of Conduct, AML Regulations and GDPR.
• Previous experience of handling complex compliance queries, such as professional conduct, AML and conflicts queries.
• Previous experience of data protection is preferred but not essential.
• Previous experience of supervision and management is preferred but not essential as training will be provided.
• Show an understanding of current compliance topics.
• The ability to work calmly under pressure, juggle deadlines and manage the expectations of internal clients.
• Advanced skills in Microsoft Excel (including use of formulae and pivot tables) and data manipulation.
• Proven communication skills, tailoring messages to different audiences.
• Commitment to meeting consistently high standards whilst ensuring attention to detail.
• Strong organisation and prioritisation skills.
• A self-motivated proactive approach and the ability to manage your own and others' workloads.

Capsticks is an inclusive employer. At Capsticks we value diversity and we are committed to creating an inclusive and supportive working environment where everyone is able to be themselves and reach their full potential. Capsticks is committed to providing equal opportunities for all and therefore we welcome the unique contributions that you can bring in terms of your education, background, culture, ethnicity, race, nationality, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, neurodiversity, religion and beliefs.

We will make reasonable adjustments to our application and interview process to ensure you have the best chance of success. We understand that there's not a 'one size fits all' approach to adjustments so our team will work with you individually to understand more about your requirements. If you have any questions please contact our Recruitment team.