Professional Support Lawyer - Antitrust, Competition & Trade London

An excellent opportunity to join our Antitrust, Competition and Trade Team as a Professional Support Lawyer.

About us

CMS is a Future Facing firm with more than 80 offices in over 45 countries and 5,800+ lawyers worldwide. We combine deep local market understanding with a global perspective. We are passionate about building strong relationships with our clients, our people, and the communities we work in.

We take a bold, dynamic, and agile approach to ensure our clients are able to face the future with confidence. We are driven by emerging technologies such as generative AI and readily embrace the possibilities it opens up for developing new and better ways of working.  Our aim is to inspire, impact and support our clients and our people, helping them to maximize their potential and thrive.

About the Team

Our Antitrust, Competition and Trade team handles a broad range of high-quality work including EU and UK mergers, competition investigations, competition litigation, behavioural advice and a wide range of regulatory and trade work, including sanctions. The team also advises extensively on public procurement matters, state aid and CMA consumer enforcement issues.

The team comprises 7 partners and a team of 18 other fee-earners, plus a dedicated Professional Support Lawyer based largely in London, but also in Edinburgh and Brussels. It is part of a wider Competition Group across CMS comprising more than 225 competition lawyers worldwide. This is therefore an excellent opportunity for someone looking to further their career in a dynamic and internationally focused competition team, with a balanced practice across transactional, contentious and advisory work.

The team undertakes a significant amount of cross-border work, cooperating on a daily basis with our international offices and the role will include some travel. We are committed to investing in our team and we provide comprehensive training to develop knowledge and skills. 

About the role

The PSL will deliver the knowledge strategy for the competition team. This will involve developing and maintaining knowledge resources and templates, monitoring and analysing legal developments, providing legal and practical expertise to support the team, and organising and delivering training.  

The PSL will have significant technical legal skills, but will also work closely with the partners to bring vision and ideas to the table. They will develop good working relationships with members of the business development and knowledge teams, including PSLs working in other practice areas across the firm. 

They will be enthusiastic and self-starting, with strong organisational skills and the ability to manage competing demands. 

The key functions of the role will be:

Know how & resources

• Develop and maintain high quality know how resources, including client advice, internal guidance, notifications, submissions and training materials.
• Maintain the team’s core templates, questionnaires and checklists, ensuring they are kept up to date with the latest legal developments.
• Work with the knowledge team to optimise the functioning of our internal knowledge platform, using feedback from team members to identify priority areas for knowledge capture and development.
• Monitor and analyse legal and regulatory developments relevant to the team’s practice, carrying out in-depth research to support client initiatives where needed.
• Prepare regular internal newsletters showcasing new know how and highlighting legal developments of interest to the team.
• Research and share use cases for AI-based tools, e.g. Harvey & Copilot.

Internal & external training

• Coordinate schedule of topics and speakers for team know how sessions, providing support to juniors where needed.
• Prepare and deliver training for team members on recent developments in competition law and liaise with other practice groups to provide internal training sessions on key topics.
• Coordinate the delivery of Trainee Training and Commercial Foundation Programmes.
• Provide ongoing training to team members, trainees and new joiners on the use of our internal knowledge platform.
• Provide appropriate guidance and training on the effective use of firm-wide knowledge tools.

Business development 

• Coordinate and prepare timely alerts and thought leadership articles on topics of relevance to clients.
• Develop content for a range of client-facing materials, including external presentations, training and pitch documents.
• Draft and deliver new/updated content for legal publications.
• Work closely with the business development team to provide support for added value initiatives, including seminars/webinars and new regulatory hubs.
• Help coordinate the team’s input for directory submissions.

The successful candidate will also work with the Innovation team to implement commercial solutions, including AI and Tech Tools. They will have a future-facing approach to the most efficient ways of working, including added value collaboration tools/platforms that may benefit clients.

About you

The right individual will be proactive, self-motivated, flexible and highly collaborative. They will enjoy new legal developments and the fast-moving regulatory landscape. 

The role would particularly suit an experienced PSL or someone who is currently in/has recently left a senior role in private practice.

Role Specifics

• Based in London, with a minority home working element.
• Supporting colleagues in London, Edinburgh and Brussels.
• 3 days per week minimum but this is negotiable.
• OC/Senior Associate level and a self-starter.
• Mainstream UK & EC competition experience e.g. merger control, investigations, abuse of dominance, anticompetitive agreements, subsidy control, State aid, procurement. Trade or sanctions experience would be a bonus.
• EU qualifications also an advantage (for Brussels support).

What's in it for you?

We want to reward you today and help you plan for tomorrow. We appreciate that everyone is different, therefore we have designed a benefits system that offers choice and flexibility based on individual needs and lifestyles. To name a few, these include:

•    Competitive basic salary (reviewed annually)
•    Flexible, hybrid working policy
•    Generous bonus scheme
•    Up to 25 days holiday (rising to 28 days with service)
•    Holiday exchange scheme
•    Private medical insurance
•    Enhanced parental leave
•    Reasonable adjustments and accommodation for disabled talent in accordance with the Equality Act 2010.

If you would like to read more information regarding our range of benefits, please visit our Rewards & Benefits page on our website.

Equal opportunities

At CMS, we place diversity and inclusion at the centre of our culture and the heart of our organisation. As a firm we recognise, celebrate, and embrace the diverse talent our society has to offer because we know that to solve big problems, we need the best and brightest minds available to us.  In support of this goal, we commit to actively breaking down barriers which stand in the way of those from diverse backgrounds and play our part in levelling the playing field. 
 
As a Future Facing Firm, we strongly believe that a career in law should be open to people from all walks of life, because not only does diversity of thought and experience make our firm a stronger and more sustainable business, but it also makes it a more rewarding place to work.
 
When recruiting, we prioritise attracting talented people and we actively promote a flexible working environment which enables all our team members to thrive. If you see a role you are interested in, but don’t feel you meet 100% of the criteria we encourage you to still consider making an application. We also welcome applications from those who may be looking to return to the workforce after a career break. 
 
We are proud to say our leadership in creating an inclusive working culture has been celebrated and recognised externally, including being listed for a number of years in the Times Top 50 Employers for Women and the Social Mobility Index.
 
We are a Level 2 Disability Confident Employer, and we actively encourage applications from people with disabilities, whether visible or invisible. We are committed to promoting equality of opportunity throughout our recruitment process and in every element of the employee life cycle. If you require assistance, or if you would like to discuss any accessibility requirements or adjustments as part of the recruitment process, please contact Becky Lowe at TalentAcquisition@cms-cmno.com who will be happy to support you.

Ready to apply? Here are the next steps.

 We look forward to receiving your application online via the CMS careers site. Please contact our Talent Acquisition team if you have any questions. 

Please note that we have a preferred agency panel in place. Only applications submitted via the portal at the point of instruction will be accepted.

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