Partner​/Legal Director

Birketts is a full service, UK Top 50 law firm. With a heritage spanning 160 years, we have more than 700 lawyers and legal professionals based in Bristol, Cambridge, Chelmsford, Ipswich, London, Norwich and Sevenoaks. We advise businesses, government and public sector organisations and individuals in the UK and internationally across four principal practice groups:
Real Estate, Corporate Services, Dispute Resolution and Private Client.

We are defined by our Next Level Law proposition. We work with our clients as a proactive partner, horizon scanning and thinking ahead to the changes, challenges or opportunities that they may face.

Next Level Law is also applied to our people. Our collegiate culture means everyone is encouraged to achieve their next level in everything they do. Roll On Friday  recently ranked us as the 5th best law firm to work at in 2024.

With our ambition to succeed, comes a strong desire to make a positive contribution to the communities we serve, and we are committed to delivering the objectives set out in our ESG strategy. Diversity plays an integral part in all that we do, with female partners comprising 40% of our partnership.

Our vibrant, energetic Employment Team boasts some of the best lawyers in the business specialising in all aspects of employment law facing a company's board or the HR professional - from everyday operational challenges through to advising on strategic issues.

The team currently comprises over 30 specialist qualified employment law solicitors, including nine partners working across six offices, making us one of the larger employment teams in the country. We have the strength and depth of expertise to ensure we deliver the service you would expect in respect of technical quality, practical approach, and timeliness of advice.

Birketts employment law team has experience in all areas of contentious and non-contentious employment law matters, representing clients from a broad range of public and private organisations as well as individuals and senior executives and we are proud to act for sector leading clients nationwide and some important and high-profile businesses and institutions across a number of key sectors.

Ranked 1 tier in Chambers and Legal 500, you will join a highly successful Employment team which is seeing consistent and continuous growth, and which works and collaborates closely as a supportive team of colleagues. Our employment advice is supplemented by a well-developed in-house employment client training offering, a HR consultancy service, a workplace investigations service, an employee incentives group, a team of accredited mediators and an immigration team.

Our new, vibrant Bristol office is a fantastic opportunity for an established senior Employment law at Legal Director or Partner level to launch our offering in the South West and build upon the work between supporting locations. The ideal candidate will have strong existing connections and the ability and desire to build and develop a team.

Current sectors in which we work include education, financial services, construction, transport and private client/agriculture, charities and public sector. Particular areas of expertise sought include:

• General employment issues ranging from maternity rights to general contractual issues
• Drafting service agreements, contracts of employment and staff handbooks
• Drafting and reviewing employment policies ranging from performance, sickness, and misconduct procedures to maternity and parental leave schemes
• Transactional corporate support work
• Wrongful and unfair dismissal
• Redundancy and restructuring
• Transfer of Undertakings
• Awareness of boardroom disputes and severance claims
• Employment litigation in the employment tribunal
• Discrimination (including sex, race, disability and age)
• Trade union work for employers and Professional Discipline and conduct, including advising professional conduct/fitness to practice panels

The ideal candidate will be entrepreneurial, enthusiastic, ambitious and will be actively involved in a range of business development activities, including attending…