HR Manager

We are specialist lawyers for heavyweight international disputes. Clients come to us in serious situations, where reputation, livelihood, and liberty are at risk.

Our Business Crime & Investigations team is the acknowledged leader in its sphere, praised by Chambers and Partners as an “Outstanding financial crime practice, and one of the earliest firms to establish itself in this field”. Working closely with our award-winning Fraud & Commercial Disputes team, described by Legal 500 as “The firm for civil fraud work outshine their competitors by combining depth of knowledge in international fraud cases with expertise at all levels” and recognised as Litigation Team of the Year at The Lawyer Awards 2025.

We manage some of the largest and most complex disputes, domestic and multi-jurisdictional, with dedicated teams of specialist litigation support lawyers. We have an international team of 101 experts speaking 20 major languages and working with a network of specialist lawyers and investigators all over the world. We act for clients across the globe, currently representing individuals and organisations in the Asia-Pacific, Africa, the Americas, the Middle East, Russia/CIS, Europe, and the UK.

The firm is based in the heart of the legal community on Fetter Lane and prides itself on being able to provide a welcoming, supportive and collegiate environment, exposure to high-quality work and the opportunity to work with some of the strongest lawyers in our fields.

The HR team is close knit and comprises an HR Director, HR Manager, Senior Talent Development Advisor, HR & Payroll Advisor and an HR Assistant. The team is friendly, supportive and non-hierarchical, but we deal with a very busy and fast-moving workload and expectations are high.

The role

We seek an HR Manager on a 12-month fixed term contract to provide generalist HR support. The successful candidate will be responsible for all aspects of HR and payroll and will be given the opportunity to contribute ideas and participate in project work.

The team work closely together on various day to day projects and tasks. Examples of specific duties may include:

• HR first point of contact for all Paralegal and Business Services (Finance, Marketing and Business Development, PA, IT, Facilities and Reception) teams such as inductions, end of probations, contract extensions, absence management, performance, disciplinary and grievance issues, flexible working requests and exit interviews.
• Support the HR Director and Senior Talent Development Advisor with Associate employee issues, as required.
• Monthly check-ins with all relevant supervisors to keep on top of management and resourcing issues.
• Supervising the HR & Payroll Advisor and HR Assistant, checking letters and providing support, guidance and development.
• Preparing and, where appropriate, overseeing the creation of employee correspondence such as contracts, references and standard letters.
• End to end recruitment – overseeing the creation of job descriptions; recruitment marketing; maintaining the recruitment database; liaising with candidates and agencies; monitoring agency performance; agreeing terms; arranging interviews and candidate testing; interviewing and offer preparation.
• Graduate recruitment – alongside our Senior Talent Development Advisor, supporting with the annual recruitment round e.g. recruitment marketing, managing relationships and renewals with providers such as LCN and AllHires (our applicant tracking system); screening applications and assisting with interview, assessment and offer process.
• Overseeing the payroll including integrating, checking and finalising monthly payroll data for HR Director and Finance Director sign off and actioning all pension amendments.
• Supporting the annual salary and bonus review process including external benchmarking, department moderation, letter creation and preparing the upload to Cascade (the HR system).
• Overseeing all benefits administration to ensure timely member additions and removals, premium increases and annual renewals.
• Overseeing Cascade employee changes, reporting and working with the HR & Payroll Advisor to make required improvements e.g. to screens, reports and workflows.
• Analysing employee and recruitment data such as agency performance, recruitment spend, sickness absence, office attendance, exit interview feedback and benefits take-up.
• Absence management - monitoring trends, employee and manager support, occupational health referrals and ensuring reasonable adjustments implemented.
• Keeping up to date with legislative changes, amending policies and providing advice and guidance on policies and practice where relevant.
• Managing and liaising with external solicitors in relation to sponsorship licenses and ensuring ongoing compliance with UK Visas & Immigration requirements.
• Assisting the Senior Talent Development Advisor with Trainee management including registrations, admissions, secondments, seat appraisals, trainee diaries, seat moves and supervisor changes when needed.
• Alongside the HR & Payroll Advisor, conducting maternity, paternity and shared parental meetings, preparing paperwork, monitoring key dates, inputting records to Cascade and escalating issues, where appropriate.
• Overseeing the co-ordination of the new starter, induction and leaver processes and ensuring accurate and timely business updates.
• Working with the Senior Talent Development Advisor to provide any Business Services training such as soft skills and legislation updates.
• Assisting the team with research and benchmarking.
• Support with the firm’s diversity and CSR initiatives.
• Leading role in Events Committee ensuring HR & Payroll compliance.

The person

The successful candidate must be able to demonstrate the following skills and qualities:

• Previous experience in a similar generalist HR role, ideally gained within a legal or professional services/partnership environment
• Excellent organisational skills, including the ability to prioritise tasks and juggle an extremely busy and varied workload
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills (both verbal and written)
• The ability to work effectively both independently and as part of a team
• Good IT skills including a working knowledge of all the Microsoft Office programmes and experience of HR software and reporting
• Numerate with excellent attention to detail
• A proactive, flexible and positive demeanour
• A confidential, diplomatic and a professional approach
• Doesn’t take self too seriously and has a good sense of humour!

Additional information

The salary is dependent on experience, and we offer a range of benefits including 25 days annual leave (plus a day off over Christmas and for your birthday and the option to buy or sell up to 3 days per year); pension; income protection; life assurance; private health insurance; long service awards; health screening; a wellbeing allowance and an employee assistance programme.

Peters & Peters is firmly committed to ensuring an inclusive and diverse workforce. As a Disability Confident employer, we strive to ensure our recruitment processes are accessible to all candidates. Should you require any reasonable adjustments or wish to discuss the support you may need at any stage of the recruitment process, please contact our HR team at recruitment@petersandpeters.com. All requests will be handled in confidence.