Employment Managing Associate in London

This is a particularly strong opportunity for an experienced employment lawyer (5-7 years PQE). A global law firm in London are looking to add a Managing Associate to their growing and increasingly busy Employment group. This well established, top Legal 500 ranked practice handles a strong mix of complex advisory work, employment litigation and transactional support, with associates given a high degree of responsibility and close knit access to expert senior lawyers and partners.

The key requirement for this role is breadth of technical experience. The partner is looking for someone who has worked on the employment aspects of corporate transactions and is comfortable advising on issues arising from M&A, restructurings and other strategic business activity. That experience is important, but this is not a role where you would spend the majority of your time doing corporate support work. In fact, the opportunity is likely to appeal particularly to lawyers who already have that transactional skillset in corporate support, but who would prefer a broader, more interesting workload.

You would work across:

• Complex employment advisory matters
• Employment litigation and contentious work
• Senior exits, restructurings and sensitive employee issues
• The employment aspects of corporate transactions
• Strategic advice to major domestic and international clients

The team are very busy in litigation and that is set to be the case throughout 2027. At Managing Associate level, the expectations naturally go beyond technical delivery. The team is looking for someone who can take ownership of matters, manage workstreams with limited supervision, build trusted relationships with clients and support more junior lawyers within the team. You should be confident exercising judgement, managing competing priorities and recognising when an issue needs senior input. There is also a strong emphasis on commerciality. The successful lawyer will understand the wider client context, not simply the legal question in isolation, and will be comfortable giving clear, practical advice to sophisticated businesses and senior stakeholders.

The role offers an attractive balance of autonomy and support. A highly competitive, above market rate salary and target hours of 1700. You will have the opportunity to lead and develop your own profile, while continuing to work closely with highly experienced partners and senior employment specialists.

Ideally, you will be:

• Around 5–7 PQE
• England & Wales qualified
• Currently working within a strong London employment practice
• Experienced across both contentious and advisory employment work
• Able to demonstrate corporate support / transactional employment experience
• Comfortable taking responsibility for matters and managing junior lawyers
• Commercially strong, pragmatic and confident dealing directly with clients
• Interested in developing within a collaborative and growing practice

For someone currently doing a high proportion of transactional employment work, this would be a particularly interesting move. You retain the value of that specialist experience, but gain access to a much broader workload across litigation, advisory and strategic employment matters. This is an exciting senior role with genuine scope to progress to Partnership, broaden your practice and take a meaningful career step forward.

For more information and to have a strictly confidential discussion about the role, please get in touch with Sarah Beard via LinkedIn.