Principal Associate - Professional Negligence

We are hiring for a Principal Associate - Professional Negligence, this role is a key leadership role within the Complex Department at ARAG Law. You will have fully responsibility for the provision of accurate, timely and empathetic advice across the Professional Negligence team, using your experience to embed the highest standards of commercial awareness, client care and technical advice via case by case supervision and technical mentoring. You will also be responsible for ensuring the team are managed in line with ARAG policies including the requirements of the ARAG Law Supervision Policy, whilst also running a small caseload of multi track level disputes yourself. You may also be required to support, lead and deliver change throughout your area supporting company initiatives and employees throughout the journey. In return, you can expect a steady stream of high quality professional negligence and misrepresentation work from a market leading insurer. Key responsibilities include:

• Developing open, honest and supportive relationships with team members to identify ongoing development opportunities and ultimately retain talent;
• Playing an active role in the management team to create a culture where we are seen as an employer of choice, internally and the external market;
• Scope, communicate and support any change activities in your area ensuring they are delivered and your teams embrace and are confident dealing with the change;
• Share knowledge and best practice with team members and the wider management group;
• Work closely with Principal Associates to deliver on SLA's, KPI's, financial and performance targets as set by the P&P Partner or Head of Department to drive efficiency, performance, billing and case throughput within the team;
• Utilise management information and work closely with other members of the management team to achieve the departmental objectives;
• Ensure cases are managed in a cost effective manner by maintaining grip on cost at all times;
• Ensure the early assessment of the prospects of success of each claim and that the claim is handled throughout in accordance with the requirements of our clients' legal expenses insurance policies;
• Drive a culture of effective and efficient case handling, whilst maintaining a focus on the good customer outcome for each individual client;
• Lead, motivate and support employees/colleagues to enable them to meet their objectives and to provide the high standard of service to our customers that we strive to achieve;
• Managing a caseload of complex of cases in line with expectations ensuring disputes are resolved in a commercial manner via courts, mediation or ADR techniques.
  
  You should be a qualified solicitor, legal executive or equivalent;
• Experience of technical supervision of junior employees in a Professional Negligence setting is essential;
• You must be customer focussed in your approach to work and strive to provide a quality and efficient service to clients, including commercial insurer clients. Experience of working in a role with similar requirements is therefore desirable;
• Experience of working in an SRA regulated environment is essential;
• You must have the ability to act on your own initiative but also know when to seek assistance;
• You must have the ability to identify risks and/or issues along with making suggestions for the appropriate mitigation of the same and to escalate them appropriately in accordance with company policy;
• An ability to prioritise and work under pressure managing numerous commitments simultaneously;
• Demonstrates a flair for leadership with strong and effective leadership skills;
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  ARAG UK helps businesses and individuals gain access to justice, and it's our founding principle to enable everybody, not just those who can afford it, to assert their legal rights.
Thousands of businesses and individuals defend or pursue legal action each year safe in the knowledge that ARAG UK are paying their legal bills. Our businesses include a legal expenses insurance company and a law firm with many opportunities in both areas. We have historically focussed on delivering legal services to customers solely via our Legal Expenses Insurance products, which provides a steady workload of litigated cases in areas such as;
• Personal Injury
• Litigation & Dispute Management
• Employment
• Business & Commercial
We believe these are exciting times for ARAG Law as part of the wider ARAG UK, and we are looking for likeminded individuals who share our ambition to make our high quality legal solutions accessible and affordable. You can expect to join an organisation that will challenge and develop you to progress your career in ways that traditional law firms cannot. We are also committed to supporting continued professional development and promote both internal Training Contracts and alternative routes to qualification (SQE/CILEX). By giving you every opportunity to develop yourself professionally and personally, we also pride ourselves on having an open, inclusive and high energy culture that encourages a fun working environment and places our customers at the very heart of everything we do. If you are keen to become part of our exciting future then we would love to hear from you. In addition to the very genuine development opportunities we provide we also offer a generous reward and benefits package.