Principal Associate - Pensions at Gowling WLG

We have an exciting opportunity for a Principal Associate to join our award winning Pensions team in London

About the team

Gowling WLG has a multi-award winning pensions law team.   We are around 50 pensions lawyers and we distinguish ourselves in the pensions law market by being good people to work with and offering:

• Advice which comes off the fence (not just information or legal opinions)
• In plain language
• Backed by the highest technical standards.

Second-to-none training and development for our lawyers is a key part of our profile as a pensions team (and as a firm).   And this is a good place to work.  Both the team and the firm as a whole regularly wins awards for being a good place to work, for its diversity initiatives, and for the way it handles trainees and training contracts. 

Pensions operates as a single team across two UK offices, with roughly equal numbers in Birmingham and London.  Most of our larger clients have lawyers from both offices on their client service teams. 

We advised (or have done pensions law project work for) employers, trustees, the Regulator, the PPF, NEST, several insurance companies, actuarial firms, Master Trusts and other industry players.  Gowling WLG (or its predecessor pensions teams Wragge & Co and Lawrence Graham) act or acted on cutting edge matters such as:

• Various large buy-in transactions acting for trustees including the buy-out of the £3.5bn Philips scheme; the £1.8bn residual risks G4S buy-in; the £2.7bn residual risks buy-in of the Thales UK Pension Scheme and the £1.2bn residual risks buy-in of the Mitchells & Butler Pension Plan. 
• Many of Rothesay Life’s largest buy-ins, including the £4bn residual risks buy-in of the two sections of the Co-operative Pension Scheme.
• Five longevity sways including for the BMW scheme.
• Advising the Trustees of both L&G Schemes on entering into an Assured Payment Policy (APP) with L&G, two out of only three transactions done in the market.
• The legal review of the Regulator’s Toolkit 
• The PPF’s review of its socially responsible investment adviser mandate.
• The first ever auto-enrolment compliant cash balance scheme (at Morrisons).
• NEST’s initial website structure and member interactions documentation.
• The £320m asset backed funding structure using intellectual property assets for GKN.
• Several leading cases including Steria (Court of Appeal on the effect of Booklets), the Sea Containers litigation and the recent leading cases involving Virgin Media, Britvic (Court of Appeal) and Axminster.
• Cutting-edge public-sector pensions work, including rewriting the entire public sector pensions legislation for the Isle of Man and developing the retention of employment model for managing the effects of TUPE in the context of Health Service Pensions.

We have a partner and four PSLs focussed on excellence and making sure our lawyers are the best they can be: fully supported in the market where they operate

About the role

This role will involve acting in relation to a wide range of pensions issues for a variety of parties including pensions trustees, their sponsoring employers and insurers, providing advice on various pensions matters, including some or all of the following:

• day-to-day advice to trustees of pension schemes ranging in size from very small to over £1bn;
• preparation of benefit specifications, discretions tables and advising on benefit related issues, in preparation for pensions risk transfer or a strategic decision to run on; 
• execution of risk transfer exercises, whether to consolidator or buy-in; 
• advice on benefit discrepancies or interpretation issues within pension scheme rules; 
• impact of legislative changes including changes resulting from case law (e.g. GMP equalisation);
• scheme documentation;
• scheme benefit change exercises and liability reduction exercises;
• the impact of corporate re-organisations and negotiating appropriate mitigation;
• scheme mergers;
• scheme wind ups;
• investment issues, including investment management agreements. 

We like our lawyers to develop their own personalities in the pensions market and, as a senior lawyer in the team, you would be expected to be involved in business development and profile raising as well as pure legal work.  Our lawyers have a passion for pensions - and they are not afraid to flaunt it!

About you

You will be a qualified Solicitor, ideally with 6+ years' PQE and experience in both pensions advisory (trustee and sponsor) and pensions risk transfer. 

You will have:

• A track record of advising trustees of large occupational pension schemes and large employers on pensions matters including taking a lead role on large, strategic projects including experience of risk transfer projects. 
• An established history of advising across the spectrum of pensions risk transfer, including preparation for and execution of bulk purchase annuity contracts, and advice to trustees and sponsors in respect of ongoing liability and protections. 
• Successfully managed and supervised junior lawyers to provide an excellent service to clients.
• Worked collaboratively and effectively with lawyers in other specialist teams.
• An excellent understanding of the principal provisions of relevant pensions legislation and how to apply them in the context of a client's key commercial drivers and in the preparation of benefit specifications and queries arising in relation to surplus and wind up. 
• Demonstrated success in building and maintaining long term client relationships, but also ability to quickly gain the trust of clients and other advisers when delivering projects.
• Experience of participating in business development events and involvement in a broad range of marketing and profile-raising initiatives.
• A clear understanding of the importance of accurate and efficient financial management.
• Experience of writing technical articles and the presentation of seminars and other briefing sessions.
• A developed understanding of the commercial issues impacting on a client’s business. 
• Proven understanding of technical legal issues; 
• Solid organisation and time management skills, including in the context of transactions; 
• The ability to adapt to a broad range of situations and circumstances and remain calm under pressure; 
• Experience of working in a team and the ability to develop relationships with colleagues and clients alike; 
• Proven attention to detail and drafting skills; 
• Sound problem solving skills; 
• Strong interpersonal, communication and negotiation skills. 

What we can offer you 

The opportunity to work for a firm which has been recognised as one of the best places to work in the UK and has been ranked by Great Place to Work® for 25 consecutive years.

• A hybrid approach to office and remote working.
• Lawyer bonus
• Generous annual leave, with the option to buy up to a week's extra annual leave
• Private medical insurance, and the option to add family members
• A generous pension allowance
• Life assurance covering four times your annual salary
• The chance of a three-month sabbatical every five years
• Maternity, paternity and adoption leave schemes
• A range of health and wellbeing programmes
• State of the art offices
• Opportunities to flourish in your role through training and personal development

Many of our people work flexibly in some way. If you would like to explore your own flexible working arrangements with us, we are happy to discuss this during the recruitment process.

Equal Opportunities

Gowling WLG is committed both to promoting equality and diversity in the firm and to Equal Opportunities in employment.  The firm believes in equality of opportunity regardless of race or racial group (including colour, nationality, ethnicity, national origins), religion or belief, age, disability, sexual orientation, sex, gender re-assignment and gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy, maternity and paternity.  This also includes any incidents of perceptive or associative discrimination and harassment.

At Gowling WLG we seek to attract and retain talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures, to create an exciting and rewarding place to work.  Our aim is to fulfil everyone's potential and together to achieve personal and business goals.

Any offers we make will be conditional subject to clearance by the SRA, evidence of eligibility to work in the UK and DBS clearance.

If you have any queries in relation to this position, please contact Sam Price - [email protected] 

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