Deputy Head of Conflicts

at  Pinsent Masons

RELEVANT EXPERIENCE/QUALIFICATIONS:

• Qualified lawyer
• Must have at least 6 years PQE and have extensive conflict lawyer experience at an international law firm, in particular experience of managing commercial conflict issues

KEY SKILLS AND ABILITIES:

• Excellent communication skills, both written and oral
• Demonstrable strategic and leadership skills
• Incisive analytical and strong problem-solving, assessing potential risks
• Excellent commercial acumen
• Experience of dealing with partners and assisting them to resolve conflicts issues
• Proven ability to establish and maintain a high degree of confidentiality, respect, trust and credibility at all levels
• Ability to take responsibility and act autonomously and robustly
• Ability to plan, organise and prioritise tasks and projects
• Ability to solve problems creatively and effectively
• Ability to work under pressure and to tight deadlines
• Negotiation and influencing skills
• Strong team player
• Ability to remain calm, controlled and resilient in a stressful and pressurised environment
• Enthusiastic and proactive

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE:

To identify, assess and assist the firm to manage and resolve conflicts of interest in the context of legal conflicts, commercial conflicts and client relationships, having regard to applicable legal and regulatory frameworks, our risk policies, the firm’s strategy and the markets and geographies in which we and our clients operate. The scope of the role will be to provide support across the entire PM network.
This is a senior role which will involve extensive interaction with senior stakeholders such as sector heads and practice group heads, as well as the rest of the fee earning community, with significant decision-making authority.
Given the firm’s size and geographical reach and with its sectoral approach to delivering on strategy, the firm has many potential conflict issues (mainly commercial) to investigate and resolve across its entire office network. The firm also has to manage conflict issues that emanate from its non-legal service delivery teams.
The Deputy Head of Conflicts will work with the Senior Conflict Managers and 8 dedicated conflict analysts (Conflict Search Team (CST)), identifying and resolving conflicts of interest and working to resolve ethical conflicts and business relationship issues, reporting to and working very closely with the Deputy General Counsel who is also a member of the firm’s Conflicts Committee. The role will include working with the Client Engagement Team on drafting appropriate conflict wording for bids and Outside Counsel Guidelines.
Working with the Deputy General Counsel will also provide significant exposure to dealing with wider General Counsel projects and risk/regulatory matters, such as internal investigations, complaints and reputational and geo-political risk issues. The proportion of non-conflict work will vary depending on the “issue of the day”.
There is a lot of “buy-in” and respect for the way that conflict issues are managed at the firm which creates a good environment to operate in, with a “One Pinsent Masons” approach.
This is a fast-paced strategic role offering an enjoyable work environment and a good life-work balance.

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

To include -

• Acting as subject matter expert for commercial conflicts, providing proactive advice and guidance on whether work can be taken by reference to our relationship with our existing clients (by reference to agreed client terms and positions of clients within the firm) and firm strategy, and/or whether any steps need to be taken before proceeding, and providing assistance with those steps (e.g. client consent wording, drafting confidential information protocols barriers etc).
• Liaising with partners and senior stakeholders on client strategy and managing client relationships in terms of commercial conflicts to resolve conflicts issues.
• Leading on internal investigations and other queries which involve conflict of interest or confidentiality issues.
• Acting as a point of escalation for conflict issues from CST who have their own level of delegated authority to clear conflicts.
• Training CST and/or conflict lawyers on the conflict rules and processes, and occasionally partners and other fee earners and Legal PAs.
• Supporting and advising the Conflicts Committee/Deputy GC in putting together business cases and making recommendations for the Conflicts Committee’s/ Deputy GC ‘s decision.
• Attending Conflicts Committee meetings and advising the Committee of decisions and issues that the Committee needs to proactively manage.
• Understanding and identifying wider commercial, risk and reputational issues at client acceptance/conflict checking stage.
• Advising on lateral hire conflict issues.
• Advising on (and drafting) engagement terms relating to conflicts and confidentiality.
• Reviewing and maintaining the firm’s conflict and confidentiality policies.

In addition, the role involves more generally:

• Assisting the CST and reporting to and supporting (with the other Conflicts Lawyers), the work of the Deputy General Counsel
• Delivering excellence in client service to the partnership with risk sensitive advice proportionate to their local regulatory, cultural and practice needs.
• Supporting the Atlas (major) client programme and firm strategy for growth when reviewing commercial conflicts
• Maintaining a log of key/complex/ commercially sensitive and/or legal conflicts with appropriate business intelligence to feed back to the business
• Maintaining and updating the firm’s own standard terms of business and letters of engagement to manage legal conflicts and ensuring a good working knowledge of agreed client conflict terms.
• Having a good working knowledge of different conflict regimes in the jurisdictions where we operate.
• Ad hoc regulatory projects
• Responding to general risk queries from the business
• Dealing with and resolving client complaints related to conflicts of interests
• Other responsibilities will be added over time as the role develops and as business needs require