Operations Manager - Financial Services Disputes and Investigations Group (12 month FTC) - Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds, Nottingham, Manchester

EMEA
Litigation & Dispute Mgmt
Birmingham
Fixed Term

About Eversheds Sutherland:

Eversheds Sutherland represents the combination of two firms with a shared culture and commitment to client service excellence. We are each known for our commercial awareness and industry knowledge and for providing innovative and tailored solution for every client.

As a full service law firm,  we act  for the public and private sector across the UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and the USA providing legal advice to clients across its company commercial, human resources, litigation and dispute management, and real estate practices.

With 69 offices across 34 countries worldwide, we have become one of the largest law firms in the world and a great place to work and develop your career. 

Practice Group:

At Eversheds Sutherland, our Litigation teams are widely acknowledged to be among the very best in the legal profession. Acting for major clients throughout the world, we regularly deal with large-scale matters involving multiple jurisdictions for multi-nationals through our award winning and ground breaking approach to project management. As a result, the work we do is incredibly varied and includes business disputes, commercial litigation, construction, regulatory issues, real estate litigation, IT, shipping, IP, and enquiries and investigations.

For all these reasons, more leading lawyers work in our team of over 500 specialist advisers than at any other firm. But size is only one of our strengths. We are lawyers who think strategically as well as legally. Our primary aim is to help clients avoid litigation wherever possible and we were the first firm in the UK to offer dispute management as a way forward from traditional aggressive litigation.

Do you combine a strong intellect with the energy and enthusiasm to deliver results? Can you work well as part of an ambitious but highly collegiate team? Then we can promise you a career environment of exceptional variety and challenge. If you want high quality work, engagement with clients and develop sector-based experience within one of the most respected practices of its kind, we want to hear from you.

The Team:

Our FSDI (Financial Services Disputes & Investigations) team in Litigation undertake portfolios of lower value but high importance claims and high value claims on behalf of clients specifically within the Financial Services Sector.  We work as a national team across our offices in Birmingham, Leeds Nottingham, Manchester, Cardiff and London. Our team of lawyers dealing with this work has grown to the extent we are looking for an experienced operations specialist who understands the litigation process and requirements of large financial institutions to support the team in the management and oversight of our litigation portfolios across several offices.  The successful candidate would ideally be based in Birmingham as the relevant projects are led from these locations but we are open minded about the right candidate working from one of our other offices, attending team days twice a week in the office.

The Role:

Case Management

Working with our case management system to:

  • Ensure case handlers are keeping their matters updated and following up with case handlers when historic deadlines are identified;
  • Ensure case handlers are marking matters as closed on the case management system within three days of a closure event (being a trial outcome, discontinuance, strike out or settlement);
  • Ensure all matters marked as closed have all fields completed and following up with case handlers when not done;
  • Plan, develop and implement processes (subject to approval by the management team) to assist the speed, accuracy and/or quality of case handlers’ updates;
  • Provide an insight into performance, outcomes and case handlers’ capacity from reports generated from the system;
  • Provide an insight into potential strategic changes from reports generated from the systems;
  • Support management team in identifying and producing templates to improve case management including the automation of court documents.

Financial Management

Working with case handlers to:

  • Ensure matters are marked as inactive on the firm’s finance system within seven days of a closure event (being a trial outcome, discontinuance, strike out or settlement);
  • Ensure once the final bill has been paid by the claim that matters are marked as closed on the firm’s finance system;
  • Reduce write offs by discussing the case handler proactively seeking bespoke fees with the client where necessary;
  • Manage case handlers utilisation, time recording and capacity levels;
  • Plan, develop and implement processes (subject to approval by the management team) to assist the speed, accuracy and/or quality of case handlers’ performance.

People Management

Work with and manage the operations assistant to ensure completion of all tasks:

  • Assist in recruitment of new case handlers;
  • Maintain and update the training pack;
  • Develop the process to onboard new starters (subject to approval by the management team) to include:
  1. assigning line manager and hub supervisor and arranging introduction meetings;
  2. assigning a case handler ‘buddy’ and arranging introduction meetings;
  3. providing training pack and ensuring completion of the training checklist;
  4. arranging necessary IT equipment and IT permissions, including access to relevant inboxes, invitations to relevant internal and external meetings and inclusion in relevant mailing lists;
  • Assign new cases received from the client;
  • Assist in keeping document inbox clear and, if new cases are inadvertently sent to this inbox, to ensure these are picked up and assigned;
  • Manage case handlers utilisation, time recording and capacity levels;
  • Liaise with special teams and supervisors regarding capacity at case handler and supervisor level;
  • Work with case handlers and their supervisor to ensure detailed handover when going on annual leave of more than 3 consecutive working days;
  • Work with an outgoing case handler and their supervisor to ensure that all handovers are completed at least two weeks prior, including re-assignment of cases;
  • Liaise with quality assurance team in relation to quality checks for cases managed by an outgoing case handler;

Project and Relationship Management

  • Assisting in maintaining and developing relationship with the client by providing consistent, clear and professionalised reports to the management team and/or the client;
  • Providing regular internal reports to supervisors on case handler performance, utilisation and case numbers;
  • Managing and maintaining relationships with preferred Counsel and Chambers, building the panel of Chambers and negotiating consistent fees for each Chambers;

Keep PPI manual up-to-date and  build a library of protocols/updates so can send timely refreshers and reminders and ensure protocols are being followed. 

This opportunity is closed to applications.