Derivatives Senior Associate - Financial Markets and Products

at  Fieldfisher

WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT?

We are looking for a talented experienced senior lawyer to work in our highly regarded Derivatives practice based in our London office. We would expect this to suit a lawyer with between five and ten years’ post-qualification experience.
The Derivatives practice at Fieldfisher has been a market-leading practice for over 25 years. We have been consistently ranked tier two in all the leading directories (Legal 500, Chambers, IFLR, etc.) and our team has been described as providing ‘faster, more tailored advice than many competitors’ and as ‘sensible, approachable and commercial’.
Most recently, Emma Dwyer, the former head of the derivatives group at A&O joined as a fifth partner in the London team. We also have two local partners who run our trading document negotiation unit based in Belfast
The team services an impressive client base that includes global investment banks, commercial banks, brokers, asset managers, hedge funds and wholesale markets service providers.
The team advises on derivatives and securities financing transactions and documentation, including drafting bespoke netting and collateral agreements, negotiating master agreements (such as ISDA Master Agreements, GMRAs and GMSLAs), drafting both structured and vanilla transaction documentation, and advises on financial regulation, legal opinions and advising on closing out and unwinding transactions.
We are closely linked to our Condor ALS business which offers legal technology solutions to our clients.
The recent (and projected) growth of the Derivatives practice means that we now need an additional senior lawyer to help us realise our growth ambitions and to intermediate supervision for the more junior team members.
Fieldfisher has a clear and transparent career development framework and partnership is available to any successful lawyer who meets the published criteria and lives the firm’s values.
We will discuss the path to partnership with appropriate applicants.

EXPERIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE

Essential experience of:

• Drafting and negotiating derivatives documents, including confirmations; and
• Running derivatives transactions (ideally including loan hedging transactions and/or deal contingent hedging transactions and/or structured repo transactions)
• Collateral structures and documentation including security interests and control arrangements in each case from a well-reputed City or international firm.
• Strong legal understanding of derivatives and relevant financial regulation.
• Experience of liaising directly with clients and counterparties.
• An interest in business development.
• Good legal skills including attention to detail in drafting and a genuine interest in the needs of the client.
• Strong academics essential.
• An ability to think laterally and identify related issues and problems and solve them.
• Excellent communication and inter-personal skills.
• An ability to work as part of a team.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Running trading document negotiations largely unsupervised, including advising clients on contractual terms and regulatory issues.
• Running or managing transactions such as finance-linked swaps, deal contingent hedges, structured repo transactions and total return swaps.
• Supervising and providing on-the-job training for the junior associates who may be handling a portfolio of trading documents as well as transactional matters
• Contributing towards the strategy of the team by building a network and supporting business development activities.

PLEASE NOTE THAT WE RECRUIT ON A ROLLING BASIS, MEANING THAT YOUR APPLICATION WILL MOST LIKELY BE REVIEWED BEFORE THE APPLICATION DEADLINE. WE WILL CONTINUE TO ACCEPT APPLICATIONS UNTIL WE HAVE SUCCESSFULLY FILLED THE ROLE.

Fieldfisher is a European law firm with market-leading practices in many of the world’s most dynamic sectors. We are an exciting, forward-thinking organisation with a particular focus on technology, financial services, energy & natural resources, and life sciences.
We are a law firm built around people with all their diversity and we strike a healthy balance between legal excellence and a down-to-earth practical approach to our clients’ needs. We believe The Future is Human, so we choose a collaborative approach with an intense focus on the end-user and consider carefully how to shape our services to add the most value to our clients