Associate - Clinical Risk

DAC Beachcroft are seeking an Associate to join the clinical risk team in our Newcastle office. This role presents an excellent opportunity for an ambitious and passionate individual to join an award-winning, progressive and highly specialised team.

Our clinical risk team is pre-eminent. We are the largest group of specialist clinical negligence lawyers in the country and we operate at the cutting edge of the law. Examples of our work in the past 5 years include:

• Acting on a range of high-profile group actions spanning topics such as mental health, medical devices and rogue doctors;
• Appearing in three cases before the Supreme Court, with a further case listed for later this year;
• Advising our clients (which include NHS Resolution, other public bodies, private indemnifiers and international healthcare businesses) on a wide range of claims, some of which are valued at more than £30m.

We provide high quality training, support and mentoring to ensure that our colleagues are supported in their work, and to help them develop into and remain the best solicitors in the sector.

Key responsibilities of the role:

• Handling a challenging but fulfilling caseload of defendant clinical negligence work acting for a variety of clients, which may include work for NHS Resolution, NHS Trusts, MDU, independent providers, and medical malpractice insurers.
• Drafting legal documents, conducting face to face negotiations and mediation of claims, preparing cases for and adhering to court deadlines.
• Engaging in direct client care, acting as first and primary contact for clients on a day-to-day basis, providing them with commercially focused legal advice, and adhering to their protocols and processes.
• Making an appropriate contribution to non-fee-earning activity. You will be encouraged to participate in knowledge sharing, training, client seminars, writing articles for publication both for in-house and external publications, and business development.

Key Technical / Knowledge:

• An Associate with ~5 years of experience in clinical negligence, personal injury, civil litigation, or insurance law.
• Experience of an NHS Resolution or MDO panel firm would be desirable but is not essential. We want the best candidates no matter what their background is.
• Strong technical and organisational skills to ensure a pragmatic and methodical approach to handling a variety of clinical negligence claims simultaneously, through an IT case management system.
• Highly focused on our clients' needs; able to adopt a commercial perspective, while also maintaining the academic rigour required for dealing with the complex, challenging and novel issues we face in many of our cases.
• Team oriented and collegiate with a desire to mentor, coach and supervise less experienced members of the team

About DAC Beachcroft

We are a leading international legal business with over 3,000 colleagues and a diverse range of capabilities. We are market leaders in insurance, health and real estate but with a full-service offering, including growing Financial Services and Tech capabilities. We represent a wide range of clients – from household names to government departments and NHS bodies. We act for nearly all of the top-20 UK and global insurers, we're market leaders in the provision of strategic, commercial and regulatory advice to providers and commissioners in the health sector, and in real estate we advise all of the UK’s top-five housebuilders.

We are a fast-growing international business with offices around the globe. In addition to our 11 UK offices, we also have offices in Bogota, Buenos Aires, Dublin, Lima, Hong Kong, Madrid, Mexico City, Miami, Milan, New York, Paris, Rome, Santiago, and Singapore plus a broad network of affiliations across the globe.

At DAC Beachcroft we are committed to and recognise the importance of equity, diversity and inclusion across the board, including and beyond the protected characteristics. We take decisions based solely on merit. We value, welcome and seek out people with different backgrounds and life experiences, perspectives, beliefs, ways of thinking and identities.