Senior Associate

Job Title Senior Associate Closing Date 30-Sep-2022 Position Full Time - Permanent Business Entity Gateley Legal Department Residential Development Location Reading - United Kingdom Job Type Experienced Hire Description We are a legal and professional services group, with over 580 professional advisers. We support more than 5,700 active clients, ranging from FTSE 100 companies to private individuals, in the UK and beyond. Forward thinking and straight talking, our approach is to find solutions to the problems that our clients face. The Team Our Housebuilding Team specialises in residential development - and nothing else. With over 230 specialists, we have the largest residential development team in the UK offering a complete acquisition to disposal service. The team acts for national and regional housebuilders, promoters and institutional landowners on new residential developments of up to 6,500 new homes. We are proud to have worked on the largest modular development in the UK. Each of our plot sales hubs in the South, the Midlands and the North on average handle approximately 4,000 plots sales per annum. Each Plot Sales Hub comprises four teams who work together to support plot sale transactions: site set up; plot sales; part exchange; and infrastructure. The site set up stage is key to ensuring that plot sales run as smoothly as possible, reducing the length of sales times and avoiding delays. Each site set up team consists of experienced lawyers who understand the process from acquisition through to plot sales. The Role Our Guildford and Reading based Residential Development teams are hiring! We are looking to appoint a solicitor who is currently operating at Legal Director level. Ideally, they will have relevant residential development and acquisition experience, but this is not essential. This is a rare opportunity to be mentored and work alongside our experienced residential development partners, Andy Wilson, James Lawrence, Tom Platt and Tony Inkin. The Unit is one of the UK's leading Residential Development teams (RDU). Nationally the RDU team acts for all of the top 10 housebuilders, in all regions of the UK. Our acquisition team is led by experienced and Legal 500 recognised solicitors who are keen to add further talent to their thriving team. Given the nature of the work this role would ideally suit an individual with at least 6 years' PQE but individuals with relevant experience will be considered. The work will be varied and will comprise a mixture of acquiring development sites for national and regional housebuilders, assisting as part of a team on complex and large-scale land acquisitions, collaboration agreements between developers, funding arrangements, strategic options and promotion agreements. It will also involve acting for housebuilders in bulk disposals to PRS's and RP's and disposals of serviced parcels or sites to other housebuilders. Gateley are fully embracing the new hybrid culture, so a mixture of both home and office working is available. Key Skills & Experience Personality fit is critical for this role and our successful candidate will be personable, self-motivated and a confident individual. The successful candidate will have a genuine desire to progress within the residential development area, have spent the early years of their career learning their craft, and are now keen to develop their skills further in a large, growing team. they will also be keen to assist and mentor junior members of the team. With high levels of motivation and commitment to giving clients excellent service, they will be commercially aware, proactive and able to work alone and as part of a team. In addition, the successful candidate will also demonstrate the following attributes: Ambition to build and grow a network of clients within professional services A strong team work ethic and the ability to work effectively under pressure Drive, commitment, self-motivation and a "can do" attitude The ability to exercise discretion and professionalism at all times Exceptional attention to detail Diversity, inclusion and well being Diversity, inclusion and well-being is an important part of Gateley's culture and values. We recruit talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures, providing equal opportunities for all to join our team regardless of age, sex, race, disability, sexual orientation, disability, and culture. We create an exciting and rewarding place to work that aims to fulfil everyone's potential and together to achieve personal and business goals. We offer flexible working patterns to help our staff achieve a good work/ life balance and we encourage candidates seeking flexibility in their next role to apply for any of our vacancies. We are proud to have been recognised by The Law Society as gold standard for our Diversity and Inclusion Charter and to be Stonewall Diversity Champions. Additional Information If you are successful in receiving an offer of a role with our company a variety of pre-employment screening checks will be completed. Our screening checks can include but are not limited to your eligibility to work, professional and academic qualifications, any criminal records, your financial stability and references from previous employers. The screening that takes place will be relevant to your role and will vary from role to role.