Associate

Farrer & Co is synonymous with the highest quality legal advice and service.

We advise individuals, families, businesses, financial services, educational and not-for-profit organisations on every aspect of the law, wherever the need arises. From our offices in London we work with trusted professionals around the world to deliver a seamless international service.

Our clients present us with complex and varied challenges. Whether that's a complicated family trust issue, a multinational corporate transaction, or an emerging threat to their reputation, they need clear thinkers who can advise on the best solutions, fast thinkers when speed is of the essence and agile thinkers who can produce a fresh approach to get the job done. That's why they choose us.

Our clients value our in-depth knowledge, technical excellence and diversity of disciplines. But what really binds our long-standing relationships with them is our approach: pragmatic, plain speaking and always steadfast in our values, which we hold dear. Values which mean we gain our clients' trust, always strive to do the right thing, and aim for the best results for them.

Superb client service sits at the heart of everything we do. We are modern lawyers with timeless values.

Our reputation management practice is long-established and very highly respected. Our clients include high net worth and high-profile individuals (including entertainment and sports clients, entrepreneurs, senior executives and those in the political space), businesses (multinational corporates, brands, private companies and family businesses), financial services businesses and professional services organisations (banks, asset managers and wealth managers), and institutional clients (sports governing bodies, schools and universities, and leading charities).  Alongside this, we also retain a small publisher client base (including The Economist and British Medical Journal), ensuring that our lawyers gain a broad experience on both sides of disputes, something which is virtually unique in the market.

Our experience across this range of sectors ensures that our lawyers have experience advising in a variety of contexts and are adept at adapting to clients’ needs and providing advice that is properly targeted.

The team operates within the wider Dispute Resolution practice.  The DR team handles a full range of litigation, arbitration and other contentious matters which are often large scale, complex multi-jurisdictional disputes. The DR practice is organised into eight sub-groups or “pyramids”, including reputation management, which reflect the disputes it handles. The reputation management pyramid works most closely with the data, intellectual property and technology disputes (DIPT) pyramid. Our reputation management lawyers operate within this pyramid too, because of the importance in particular of understanding data protection law in order to advise clients on reputation issues, and also due to the increasing prevalence of contentious data matters in recent years. So, it is anticipated that the successful candidate will also work within the DIPT pyramid on contentious data matters.

The role will involve advising on a variety of reputation management issues, from pre-publication advice to High Court litigation.  Lawyers have and gain experience in a range of areas of law, including defamation, misuse of private information, data protection, breach of confidence, harassment and intellectual property.  Cases will often be high profile and involve mainstream media coverage, but the role will also encompass more strategic issues, such as managing online reputation risk and wider privacy or confidentiality concerns.  Alongside this, the candidate will have the opportunity to assist on contentious data matters, such as data breaches and litigation arising from unlawful data processing.  Sitting within the Dispute Resolution team, there will in addition be scope to work on commercial litigation cases from time to time. 

• Assist on a range of matters, honing legal technical knowledge, client relationship skills and the ability to judge fast-moving, diverse challenges faced by clients.
• On a day-to-day basis, draft inter party communications and advice to clients, liaise directly with clients, run smaller matters, assist in project managing longer-term reputation management tasks, handle and be familiar with civil litigation procedure, assist on urgent pre-publication matters and attend calls, meetings and hearings.

Business Development and Profile

The team is very active in developing business and consolidating its profile.  The successful candidate will therefore have the opportunity and be expected to: write articles and prepare marketing materials, participate in promotional business development campaigns, give presentations, attend events (both in-house and externally) and build a network. 

• Proactive team player and supportive colleague, with an enthusiastic manner, who takes a flexible, ‘can-do’ approach with interest in the areas of law we cover.
• Confident in working autonomously/independently and able to ensure that ever-changing deadlines are met and cases move ahead smoothly.
• Ability to assimilate complex facts as well as being meticulous and well organised.
• Good IT skills, and a working understanding of the digital aspects of the role (social media, search engines and similar).
• Adaptable and open to change, with a strong sense of responsibility.
• Possesses a proactive and innovative approach to problem solving, demonstrating sound judgment.
• Ability to deal with a diverse range of client personalities.

The candidate will hold a minimum 2.1 degree and a training contract from a specialist reputation management or mid-sized or city firm. Experience in reputation management/media litigation is helpful but not essential. 

The hours of work for this opportunity are 9:30am - 5:30pm but we would expect the successful candidate to be committed, flexible and prepared to work beyond the normal office hours as necessary and in response to client/work demands. You will be expected to follow the firm’s agile working policy, which embraces home working but will require employees to spend a minimum number of days each week in the London office.

Farrer & Co is open to flexible working by arrangement although this role is intended as a full-time position.

Farrer & Co conducts a pre-employment screening which consists of a Criminal History Background and Credit Check for successful candidates.