Litigation Advisor in Birmingham

This is an exciting time to join our growing Collective Actions business as we look to recruit a Litigation Advisor. The successful candidate will work from our Birmingham office and will be closely supervised by our litigation and central business acceptance teams. They will have responsibility for supporting the client onboarding process for collective actions (claims involving significant numbers of claimants).

Responsibilities

• Compliance Related Tasks
  • Ensuring that our ‘Know Your Client’ (KYC) checks comply with legal and regulatory requirements
  • Collecting and reviewing KYC/ID documents and associated information
  • Undertaking detailed research on corporate clients
  • Scrutinising sanctions, PEP and adverse media checks
  • Escalating decisions and documenting rationale
  • Communicating client onboarding decisions
  • Conducting conflict checks
• Client Management Tasks
  • Managing client communications through a dedicated Inbox, reviewing and escalating as appropriate
  • Understanding the case being brought to assist client queries
  • Maintaining a log of complaints and case related metrics
  • Administrative tasks and general document management (including across SharePoint, Word and Excel)

Team Austen Hays’s Collective Actions (competition law and group litigation) team, which is part of Gateley, delivers access to justice in a fair, efficient, and transparent way – it is at the core of our team’s purpose. Using the right expertise and the right technology they bring a forward-thinking approach to individuals, businesses and consumers looking to achieve collective redress. They help claimants seek justice by sharing the costs and risks of litigating with many people or organisations in the same situation. Claimant centred collective actions is a new and developing area of the law, which plays a key role in holding businesses to account to ensure access to justice and fair compensation for consumers.

Austen Hays has made significant investment in technology which will support hundreds and thousands of claimants to opt into a class action. The effect of this is that manual intervention will be limited and the process of onboarding of clients will only require involvement by a Litigation Advisor in a limited number of scenarios. We therefore expect that the successful candidate for this role will have more exposure to the legal queries rather than queries of an administrative nature.

Our Head of Collective Actions and Partner - Chaya Hanoomanjee and Partner – Alicia Theuma have extensive experience in launching and managing group claims, usually with an international element, and in securing group settlements. Supplemented with deep knowledge of litigation funding, they are well placed to advise on all stages of the collective actions process, and suitable funding structures. Our highly talented team has acted on some of the most complex and significant collective cases in the UK, brought by both consumers and businesses. The team has been at the forefront of the rise of consumer group claims, including previously acting as lead solicitor for over 71,000 individuals in the landmark Volkswagen NOx Emissions Group litigation, which settled for £193m in May 2022.

Candidates must be able to demonstrate the following skills:

• Ability to analyse documents and other information, with close attention to detail.
• Good understanding of risk and when to elevate concerns or decisions to senior managers.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Ability to work well as part of a team and, also independently.
• Good prioritisation skills, with the ability to work under pressure and to tight deadlines.
• Strong organisational skills.
• Confidence – this candidate may need to have difficult conversations with stakeholders within the Business and clients.
• Knowledge of relevant legislation and regulatory requirements would be helpful but is not essential.
• A good level of IT systems knowledge.

This job description is not an exhaustive list due to the requirements of the role. Therefore, the job holder may be required from time to time to carry out other ad hoc tasks as requested by Collective Actions.

About Us

With support, coaching and feedback from some of the most engaging colleagues around, our great development and progression opportunities will reward your commitment and loyalty. We offer a competitive remuneration package where you’ll be rewarded for your individual performance with an opportunity to receive an annual bonus. In addition, we have a wide range of learning and development opportunities via our Learn platform to develop new skills and progress your career.

Our My Flex comprehensive rewards package includes options covering annual leave (and the benefit of purchasing extra days), cycle to work, critical illness benefit, employee assistance programme, group personal pension, health care, season ticket loan and many more benefits (grade dependent). Finally, with Perks At Work/Home you can select a host of retail benefits that suit your needs alongside a Community Online Academy, free courses for all from fitness to coding to languages to hip hop dance.

Gateley

We are forward thinking and straight talking, our approach is to find solutions to the problems that our clients face. Gateley is a legal and professional services group, we are a group of formidable experts in all areas of law and business. Passionate problem solvers, we get our kicks from finding the right answers and getting our legal and business clients where they need to be. We support more than 5,700 active clients, ranging from FTSE 100 companies to private individuals, in the UK and beyond.

Being part of Gateley is not just about the expertise that you bring; it’s about attitude too. The ‘Gateley Story’ is the story of our people and our culture. It is what has got us to where we are today as a successful business and it’s the driving force behind the Gateley Team Spirit and the values that have shaped it. We have a set of shared internal values that capture what the Gateley Team Spirit is and this includes five elements that bind us all together as one Gateley: Ambitious for Success, Forward Thinking, Room to Breathe, Trusted to Do and Working Together. Every year across the group, we recognise members of our team that have gone above and beyond and have lived these shared values. They are recognised at our annual Gateley Team Spirit awards.

Diversity, inclusion and well being

Diversity, inclusion and well being is an important part of Gateley’s culture and values. We recruit talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures, providing equal opportunities for all to join our team regardless of age, sex, race, sexual orientation, disability, or culture. We create an exciting and rewarding place to work that aims to fulfil everyone’s potential and together to achieve personal and business goals. We offer flexible working patterns to help our staff achieve a good work/life balance and we encourage candidates seeking flexibility in their next role to apply for any of our vacancies. We are proud to have been recognised by The Law Society as gold standard for our Diversity and Inclusion Charter and to be Stonewall Diversity Champions.

Additional Information

If you are successful in receiving an offer of a role with our company, a variety of pre-employment screening checks will be completed. Our screening checks can include but are not limited to your eligibility to work, professional and academic qualifications, any criminal records, your financial stability and references from previous employers. The screening that takes place will be relevant to your role and will vary from role to role.