Samantha Hope
Ever wanted to be somewhere different? Somewhere better?
We’d like you to consider joining us. We’re a leading national law firm and we’re always looking for people to join our dynamic working culture. You’d join a team of individuals, working in a positive, professional and cooperative culture. Energetic, ambitious people thrive here because of the enterprising and businesslike way we work together and with our clients.
You’ll find that our teams are friendly and effective. Everyone is valued. We work hard, we enjoy what we do, we like each other. You’ll find very little politics: we apply our energy to our clients, not on internal issues. If you join us, we’ll give you the space and support to build your career and boost your skills.
Whatever stage you’re at, we’d encourage you to take the long view and think now about the kind of firm you would like to work in. We offer summer placements so that you can see for yourself our friendly and down-to-earth working environment, as well as being given the opportunity to complete real trainee-level work.
Life isn’t all about work and our trainees are encouraged to strike a healthy balance in everything they do. Our trainees get to do a lot of things away from their desk and often are left to fly solo. We give them the freedom to develop valuable skills through marketing, social, charity or sporting activities.
About Shoosmiths
Shoosmiths has developed rapidly in recent years, with growth both in reputation, and by the measure of turnover, up from £43 million in 2002 to £95 million in 2007. Our recent history has seen us making the transition from a regional to a national law firm, with highlights including the launch and success of our Birmingham office (opened in 2002) and, in 2008, our first bridgehead into London.
We are a top 20 law firm for real estate according to The Lawyer Top 100 survey and were short listed as “The Company Secretary’s favourite Law Firm in the Chambers and Partners AoB Awards 2007. Legal surveys currently place us 10th in the UK by size (1500 employees) and 27th by our combined turnover and size (£95 million 2006/07).
We have the essential building blocks – great people, great locations (Basingstoke, Birmingham, London, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Nottingham, Southampton and Thames Valley), and great clients. Culture and brand are important differentiators for us and our strong values programme is actively reinforced at every job interview, promotion opportunity and performance & development review for all our staff. Our brand values help us to deliver our advice consistently across the whole spectrum of legal disciplines and encourage our staff to “go the extra mile” in everything they do. In 2007 we won “Best Brand in Practice” at the Managing Partner Forum Awards for successfully delivering on our promises to clients.
We believe that by being service-oriented and client-centred, we can make best use of opportunities in the legal services market, now on the brink of substantial change in the wake of the Legal Services Act. We have worked hard to ensure that no matter what the instruction, the standard of care and robust legal advice is what the client recalls when the Shoosmiths’ brand is mentioned.
As a partnership, Shoosmiths is not bound by “herd-thinking” and we assign our professional management team the freedom to act, which has resulted in bold and agile actions that our competitors find hard to match. This was recognised in 2006, when Shoosmiths won the ‘Management Team of the Year’ award in The Lawyer Awards, beating Clifford Chance and DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary.
Later that same year, Legal Business picked out Shoosmiths as being ‘smart operators’, with a perceived market positioning of ‘a national firm whose unique processes deliver better service and greater value’. The same article described Shoosmiths’ personality profile as “savvy, open to change and cohesive”.
We are a top 20 UK employer in the independently researched 2007 edition of “Britain’s Top Employers” published by Guardian Books and also achieved the highest overall score in a lawyer satisfaction survey of the top 50 UK law firms conducted by Legal Week Intelligence in 2007.
What do we have planned for the next 5 years? Our vision is to become the UK’s ‘most valued law firm’.