Costs Lawyer/Costs Draftsperson

Birmingham, England, United Kingdom

12/14/2024

The firm

Shoosmiths is the law firm clients choose for excellent service, incisive thinking and above all for our ability to focus on what matters. From offices across the UK and Brussels, we support some of the world’s most exciting and ambitious businesses; amazing clients making an impact. We empower our people to be their authentic selves and deliver together in supportive teams committed to excellence and innovation. The first top 50 law firm to achieve ‘Platinum Standard’ Investors in People, our values and culture are not just words on our website but are the heartbeat of the firm.

We have an outstanding benefits package to complement our competitive remuneration system. In addition to the competitive salaries, great working environment and high-quality work, we believe that all staff should be rewarded for their commitment to the continued success of the firm through a comprehensive and flexible range of benefits.

To discover more about our benefits, please visit: Benefits Package

The team

Our costs team sits as part of our Advisory Division. We are a team of 6 and we work collaboratively but also take individual initiative and pride in developing ourselves. As mentioned above, we work most closely with our colleagues in Serious Injury as well as a variety of other teams across the wider firm. The team is ranked in Legal 500.

The role

We have a position available for an experienced Costs Draftsperson to join our team – ideally in Birmingham but other regional locations will be considered. It is expected that the long term working pattern will involve some home working with regular attendance at the Birmingham office.

This role should appeal to costs practitioners who feel pigeon-holed in a certain area of the process. Rather than limit you to drafting, we can offer you a chance to work on budgeting, negotiations and advocacy too if you’d like to so you’re taking responsibility for every step. We are a close-knit team – well known across the firm. As a consequence, we are also building up a pipeline of commercial work so if you joined us, you’d also have exposure to a variety of work from areas such as commercial litigation, restructuring, planning or property litigation.

You will need to have experience of drafting new format electronic bills and preferably in complex civil litigation. Our costs team regularly supports our Serious Injury department who are working on complex litigation. The bills we draft can cover 1000s of hours of work and are often assessed in the SCCO. We expect you will need to have spent at least 3 years’ working on Claimant bills to meet the requirements of this role.

We will consider paralegal, CILEX or qualified costs candidates provided you have the right experience.

Equal opportunities

Our approach to our people is underpinned by our approach to diversity, inclusion and well-being. Our ambition is to build a diverse and ambitious workforce that reflects all backgrounds and talents, and a workplace that is supportive and inclusive, recognises and nurtures talent, and has a strong sense of community between colleagues.

This means that everyone who either applies to or works for the firm is treated equally, whatever their gender, age, ethnic origin, nationality, marital status, disability, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.