Employment Health Associate/Senior Associate 4+PQE (Birmingham, Bristol or Leeds)

With four of our eleven partners ranked Band 1 in Chambers and Partners including two of our six specialist employment health and care partners, our Employment, Pensions and Immigration team continues to be a market leader for legal services to health and care as well as to local government.

Our national Employment, Pensions and Business Immigration team is recognised as a Chambers and Legal 500 Top Tier Employment Team. Chambers and Partners 2025 ranks Bevan Brittan as one of only three firms at Band 1 for Employment: Employer: Healthcare and we have the most Band 1 ranked lawyers in this area.

Alongside our established reputation in these markets, the team continues to grow its profile and client base in some of our emerging markets including the insurance and finance, commercial, higher education and housing sectors.

The team operates on a truly national basis, providing our lawyers with the opportunity to work with a variety of colleagues and clients. Acting mainly for employers, our roster of clients includes national and multi-national organisations, and we support them to improve their employment practices and manage workforce issues, as well as defending employment claims and seeking to mitigate risks for clients. We act alongside our complementary multi-disciplinary teams such as information law, commercial and regulatory teams.

Bevan Brittan has strong recognition in the independent legal directories - Chambers & Partners and Legal 500. In both guides we are consistently ranked in the top tier for our practices across the UK, with multiple individuals recognised as leading lawyers.

"Bevan Brittan is widely renowned for delivering expert employment advice and support to public and private healthcare organisations across the country. The firm is adept at handling highly sensitive disputes including complex High Court and tribunal cases […] assisting clients with employment issues relating to shared services agreements and partnerships [and] workplace culture issues, including whistle-blowing, bullying and discrimination" - Chambers & Partners, 2025

The role

We are looking for either an Associate or Senior Associate (4+ PQE) to join us, based in our Bristol, Birmingham or Leeds office (with flexible hybrid working), ideally with health and care sector advisory experience and capability to manage complex litigation as part of a team.

As a member of the national employment healthcare practice the primary focus of your role will be supporting the healthcare partner leads, across our substantial health and care practice, including the NHS, as well as independent healthcare organisations and operators within care and the voluntary sector. As part of this, you would also work with other members of the team, as well as part of multi-disciplinary teams across the firm, providing employment support on a variety of transactions and deals.

Building relationships, both externally with our clients and across our internal teams, is key. In this role, you will have the opportunity to work with regulatory and commercial healthcare colleagues to ensure a joined up, multi-disciplinary approach. You will ideally have some experience of the NHS workforce and contractual frameworks and, some TUPE and transactional experience.

You will also have the opportunity to support clients in the other sectors in which we work and across a variety of work-types from transactional, to advisory support, to contentious work. The depth and breadth of the markets in which we operate will provide the opportunity and flexibility to work on novel and complex employment law issues.

With more than 100 new litigation instructions every year, our Employment team's litigation experience is second to none. Whether in the Tribunal, the EAT, the Court of Appeal or the High Court you will have the chance to be involved in ground-breaking employment litigation. Managing complex litigation is likely to be significant part of your role.

With your skill and expertise, it is envisaged that you would:

• Manage your own matters with relatively limited supervisory support and delegate to juniors
• Work with and support a number of our partner leads and colleagues across all 4 of our offices
• Provide management and supervisory support to junior colleagues
• Support on training and client relationship management

You would be supervising and advising on a range of employment work-types, but also delivering training, supporting and managing client relationships and supporting business development.

What we are looking for from you

The successful candidate will be involved in providing sound, commercial employment advice and would ideally have some or all of the following skill set/experience:

• A broad range of employment experience, ideally gained across one or more of our key markets, including health and care (NHS or independent), local government, financial services, general commercial, higher education, and/or housing
• Strong litigation and/or advocacy experience and a capability and desire to manage complex, high profile litigation as part of a team
• TUPE experience including drafting/negotiating related warranties and indemnities and advising on workforce aspects of commercial transactions, including information and consultation processes
• Undertaking transactional due diligence, often as part of a wider corporate or commercial transaction with multidisciplinary teams
• Advising on restructures/redundancy processes
• Advising on employee relations issues including settlement negotiations
• Reviewing/drafting policies
• Contractual advice; experience in advising on NHS terms and conditions desirable but not essential
• Experience in advising independent healthcare providers on engagement models for clinicians and Practising Privileges desirable but not essential
• Delivering training and actively contributing towards business development activities
• Supervision of junior colleagues
• Good client management skills and an interest in business development

We offer a structured career pathway to meet both your and our needs.

Make a Real Impact

Bevan Brittan is a leading commercial law firm. Alongside our recognised expertise in housing, local government, and health and social care, we are specialists in the construction, energy and resource management, higher education and financial services sectors.

Supported by valued business services professionals, our award-winning and growing legal teams work together to support almost 2,000 organisations with commercial, corporate, property, finance, regulatory, employment and litigation (commercial and clinical negligence) legal and advisory services.

As a responsible business, we embrace four values: Relationships, Reputation, Responsible and Results. These give us a sense of purpose. They influence the decisions we make and how we work with each other. Importantly, they motivate us to deliver meaningful outcomes for our clients and the communities that we’re part of.

Consistently recognised as one of The Times Best Law Firms and highly ranked across the legal directories, we are proud of our hard-earned reputation. Our 2023/24 financial results confirmed both revenue and profit growth for an eleventh consecutive year, ensuring our ability to continue investing in our people.

As a firm we embrace our differences, we act responsibly, now and for the future and we support you to be your best through our hybrid working model and professional development opportunities.

Looking to the future, we’re targeting ambitious growth and success. And we’re looking for the best people to be part of it.