Principal Associate - Employment

The role

Gowling WLG is seeking a Principal Associate with 7+ years of PQE to join their highly-regarded Employment practice in Birmingham. This senior role involves managing complex employment law matters for employer clients, providing strategic advice, and playing a key part in client relationships and team development.

What you'll do

• Lead and manage your own caseload of matters for employer clients with minimal partner supervision
• Provide strategic advice across the full range of employment law issues
• Advise clients on how best to deliver their objectives, despite the complexities of employment law
• Draft all types of employment-related documents, including service agreements, handbooks, secondment agreements, and consultancy agreements
• Advise on legislative changes as they are proposed and finalised
• Lead advice on TUPE, from application to day-to-day support on handling information and consultation exercises, including project-managing multi-site or multi-jurisdictional programmes
• Lead advice on large-scale redundancy, re-structuring and collective consultation exercises
• Provide corporate support
• Provide transactional support to commercial and real estate teams
• Run all types of litigation, in the employment tribunal or civil courts, including complex, high-value and multi-claimant discrimination litigation and business protection disputes, with conduct of the matter from instruction to final hearing, managing counsel and supervising junior team members
• Support with all types of ER issues, from advising on grievances or protected disclosure issues, through to family friendly queries, agency work and working time issues
• Advise on trade union issues and industrial relations disputes
• Advise on, conduct and oversee workplace investigations, including sensitive and senior-level investigations
• Handle employment-related data protection issues, including handling DSARs and employee privacy notices
• Deliver training to clients
• Take a leading role in business development and profile raising for the team, including developing and executing your own business development plan, public speaking within the firm and on a broader stage, and authoring alerts/articles for clients and targets
• Supervise, delegate to and review the work of trainees, junior and mid-level associates and paralegals, acting as a mentor, providing regular constructive feedback, and contributing to appraisals and the development and wellbeing of junior colleagues
• Act as day-to-day relationship lead for a portfolio of clients, building trusted-adviser relationships with in-house legal and HR teams, and identifying opportunities to broaden instructions, including cross-selling the firm's other services
• Take full responsibility for the financial management of your matters, including scoping, fee estimates and proposals, budgeting, time recording, billing, WIP management and debt collection, working to an annual chargeable hours target and a personal billing target, and contributing to panel tenders and pitches
• Contribute to the team's know-how and precedent bank with the PSLs, designing and delivering internal and client training, participating in firmwide initiatives, and contributing to the strategic development of the practice and its sector focus

What we're looking for