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Managing Associate – Farms Estates Rural Land

Farms, Estates and Rural Land

Southampton or Oxford

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We are looking to recruit an ambitious and experienced Managing Associate to join our Farms Estates Rural Land (FERL) Team. This is an exceptional opportunity to work closely with lead Partner Edward Venmore and a highly regarded, innovative team. Our lawyers are experts in agricultural law and have both regional and national experience, with a breadth and depth of knowledge of both high-value and complex farming and land matters. As a trusted advisor, you will work collaboratively to bring in expertise, ensuring the best legal and commercial solutions are achieved every time.

Our growth strategy is opening up opportunities that you may not have seen elsewhere – not simply for progression, but to have the responsibility and involvement that helps you to develop as a Senior Lawyer and a potential future leader of the firm. Our ambition is complemented by a culture that makes life at the firm rewarding and interesting.

What we’re looking for

You will be able to contribute to the ongoing growth and development of our Farms, Estates and Rural Land practice, as well as the wider Real Estate Group. You will lead on matters directly while supervising junior team members, and collaborate with teams from across the firm including energy and developer.

We are looking for someone with extensive Rural experience at a senior level who is ready to take the next step in their career. Whether you specialise in Litigation or you are a Transactional Lawyer, we are open to considering candidate from either background. As a litigator, you will have experience in landlord/tenant disputes, farming partnership disputes, nuisance claims, right of way disputes, landed estate work, contentious receivership work, regulatory disputes relating to rural land, and supporting other teams across the firm in areas such as developer and renewables and natural capital. For transactional lawyers, your experience will include farm and land sales/purchases, country house sales/purchases, refinance work, receiverships of rural property, easements and licenses and, rural tenancies.

With a strong presence in your region, you should possess excellent rapport building and communication skills, establishing and deepening trusted relationships with clients and generating lasting connections with key clients, referrers  and internal contacts. You will actively engage in various business development opportunities and understand the commercial context of your clients. Providing relevant advice at the right moment will be crucial. In return, we are fully committed to working with you to unlock your potential and help you achieve your career goals.

If you are looking for a forward-thinking firm with the ambition to succeed, this is the perfect opportunity for you. If you have any questions or would like to discuss this role further, please contact our Talent Acquisition Team via email at [email protected], and we will respond as soon as possible.

Pre-employment screening

Successful applicants will be required to complete a pre-employment screening process which includes a financial integrity check and a DBS check. If you wish to discuss any issues or questions in connection with this, please do speak in confidence with a member of the Talent Acquisition Team.

Eligibility to work in the UK

Eligibility to work in the UK will be verified in the final stages of the selection process. All candidates must be able to prove their right to work in the UK, which may include meeting the Home office criteria for Visa sponsorship. Candidates who require sponsorship should evaluate the Home Office eligibility criteria for a Skilled Worker visa before applying and keep up to date with any legal developments.

Our offer to you

In return for your efforts, you can expect considerable scope for personal as well as professional development. We encourage people to engage with our popular and well supported coaching and mentoring programmes, which connect you to people right across the firm and at every level. We create space for mental and physical wellbeing with our weekly Lifestyle Hour, along with 28 days annual leave, private medical insurance (eligibility applies) and a sabbatical you can take every 5 years. You can also buy holiday, managing your benefits flexibly using our sophisticated portal to configure your total reward offer according to what you value most. As part of this, you can make ongoing or one-off donations to our charitable foundation and access our CSR programme where you can engage with community-based initiatives (as a team, or individually) twice a year, to give something back where you feel it matters.

Why Foot Anstey?

As one of the UK’s fastest growing law firms, Foot Anstey believes in helping our clients and people achieve their ambitions, unlocking new and exciting opportunities. Our team of business and legal advisors are motivated by understanding clients’ goals and collaborating with them and other advisers to deliver solutions. By becoming our clients’ most trusted advisor, we are enabling them to achieve their ambitions. How we do it is just as important as what we do. Our values define the way we act with our clients and one another every day, and because of these we think our culture and environment sets us apart.

Over our history we’ve grown from a high-street firm to a significant regional and national player working with leading brands and individuals predominantly across six key sectors: Private Equity, Retail & Consumer, Energy & Infrastructure, Islamic Finance, Developers and Private Wealth. Our strategy of gaining market share through meeting clients’ needs, investing in and developing high quality talent and using technology and innovation to enhance our services has led to significant growth. We now operate from nine locations: Truro, Plymouth, Exeter, Taunton, Bristol, Southampton and London, as well as a ‘hub’ base in Oxford and Manchester.

Our people are central to our success, in every part of the business. We actively support our employees to achieve their aspirations through offering meaningful careers with balanced rewards, which have been carefully designed to focus on personal wellbeing. We offer continual opportunities for support and professional development through our Business Skills Academy and Digital Skills Academy and believe in empowering each other to achieve and strive to create a progressive and inclusive working environment. Being forward-thinking, we are open to discussing flexible working patterns for all of our vacancies, with over 40% of our existing employees having a permanent flexible working pattern. In addition, our impressive suite of flexible benefits will enable you to prioritise what matters most to you. 

Creating a diverse and inclusive workplace is integral to delivering our strategy, and we were delighted to be awarded the National Equality Standard for a second time in 2021. We consider this to be right at the heart of our priorities and goes way beyond our policies – it’s something we consider across everything we do, from the make-up of our client teams, encouraging staff to reach their potential, through to our leadership. We aim to support our clients and our people to achieve their goals, regardless of background, gender, race, beliefs, sexuality or other non-work related factors. We champion aspiration and encourage it in everyone that works with us.  As such we actively encourage applications from all suitably qualified people, regardless of any characteristics protected by law. If you apply for this role, you may be encouraged to answer our diversity and social mobility monitoring questions, so please be reassured that any answers you provide will remain entirely anonymous and confidential and will in no way impact your application.

Foot Anstey. Powering Your Ambition.

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