Financial Services Associate NQ-5
| Location | Leeds |
| Discipline: | Associates & Senior Associates , NQ to 3 years PQE |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Salary: | ££65K-£75K |
| Contact name: | Tony Brooke |
| Contact email: | anthony@brookethornham.com |
| Job ref: | J10158 |
| Published: | 4 days ago |
| Startdate: | 2025-11-25 |
This full service firm has a strong offering to Financial Services clients, including both contentious and non-contentious advisory expertise within the same team albeit lawyers will typically have a preferred leaning. This broad overview and awareness they regard as a strength in the way they can deliver to clients, the continuity of the advisor relationship, and also for the holistic appreciation of their lawyers who get a more in depth understanding of the issues the FS clients are facing.
Many of the larger firms doing Financial Services work have sizeable teams deployed on huge pieces of work - it can become process driven, repetitive, volume work which makes good fees but is very limiting for the lawyers involved. My client wants someone who'll do a broader variety of more bespoke work.
You'll be building specialist insight and confidence right across the FCA regime, including consumer finance, payment sector clients, and asset finance. You'll see more, learn more, and develop more than if you're in a huge unit doing volume work for a small number of lenders. Your value as a legal expert will be enhanced rather than constrained and you'll be encouraged to follow particular interests you may have.
Everyone in this law firm builds professional contacts and you'll be free to do the same, either independently or as part of the departments collective efforts. It's likely this will be more familiar with lawyers from a private practice background, but in-house candidates with the right technical experience will certainly be of interest if they wish to transition into a law firm way of practising the law. Indeed having had client-side experience might be a useful perspective to bring across into servicing a variety of clients.
This particular role is to focus more on non-contentious advisory, but you can expect some touch points with contentious work and you'll operate daily alongside colleagues who are litigation focused. A candidate from a Finance Litigation background who wants to morph their expertise into advisory work and to really get to grips with the technical substance of FS Regulatory will definitely be considered for cross-training.
This is a technically challenging area of law, it is not necessarily one which many lawyers have ever studied or had touch points with, but it is better for knowing and can offer a long and rewarding career be that in private practice or in-house, so there's real merit in choosing FS Regulatory as a career direction.
An ideal candidate would be coming from a firm with a recognised FS Regulatory team, and those usually sit within Top 100 legal brands. NQ-5yrsPQE is the rough level envisaged but if someone were slightly further on in their career they'd certainly be considered on their merits as the partners appreciate how hard these skills are to come by.
You would be interested in this particular role because this firm is a bit unusual as it is a single site law firm going toe to toe with national or international brands. Such brands typically have a network of sites, a dispersal of management and decision makers, and frequently some friction as regards resourcing across different teams and sites. In contrast with my client everything happens in one location and so everyone is visible and aligned and it makes for a more dynamic and cohesive operation. It feels very different, and it is also highly profitable!
Culturally it's an industrious but down to earth attitude at this Leeds based firm - they like pragmatic, solution focused self-starters who want to get stuck in. Good communication skills are important. And wanting personal responsibility is also important and you will be supported and supervised but you won't be micro-managed. Hours target is comfortably less than other firms of similar expertise, and their bonus scheme pays up to 35% of salary which is a significant incentive.
An unusual and highly attractive opportunity for someone with a genuine interest in the Financial Services sector, and a base of knowledge gained either from a contentious or non-contentious perspective be that in practice or possibly in-house.
The firm suspects they'll likely assist someone to cross-train into this role so don't hesitate to reach out for an exploratory discussion.
Brooke Thornham Consulting advertisements use PQE levels purely as a guide to the level of experience required for the role and this does not prohibit applications from candidates who are able to demonstrate the necessary skills and experience. We aim to respond to enquiries as soon as possible but if we have not contacted you within 5 days then unfortunately on this occasion your application has not quite met the requirements of our client closely enough.