EMPLOYMENT TAX, COMMERCIAL TRUSTS & CHARITIES ASSOCIATE | 0 – 5 YEARS’ PQE | £95K - £130K | LONDON

Job Description

The successful candidate will ideally be based out of the Firm’s London or Birmingham office, however more senior candidates will have the option to be based from any of this Firm’s UK offices.

The Team:

This role sits within the Firm’s revered Employment & Reward Practice, and will be a broad and varied role which will allow you to work closely with the Firm’s leading employment, pensions, share incentives and financial services teams, in addition to allowing extensive Partner contact.

This a unique opportunity: This team rarely hires and the hiring Partner is happy to consider candidates with experience in only one of Employment Tax, Commercial Trusts & Charities law. Candidates who wish to take an active role in contributing to the other practice areas will be fully supported in doing so – including being upskilled by the hiring Partner.

This Firm are also happy to consider in-house lawyers interested in moving/returning to Private Practice.

The Role:

The team focuses on the following key areas - each of which is a national centre of excellence (and, in the case of commercial trusts and charities, unique to the Firm).

Employment Tax/Trusts:

This comprises the following areas, and plays a significant role in the firm’s Employment & Reward practice (of which the team forms part):

• Employment tax (a full range of support to the Employment team's clients and the wider firm, including termination issues, employment status/IR35, and structuring in relation to internationally mobile employees).
• Advising on employee-incentivisation benefits, such as death in service schemes, and acting for most of the providers in the healthcare trusts market on the development of new processes and services. The team is a national leader in this area, which often requires a combination of tax and trust law expertise.
• Providing support to the Pensions team and its clients on tax issues arising in relation to pension-related products.
• Working closely with the share incentives team in relation to issues arising from employee benefit trusts.

Commercial Trusts:

The team is a national leader in this area, working closely with the firm's insurance/financial services sector and pensions teams. Work is diverse and may involve drafting suites of documents, technical questions or advice on often cutting-edge new products and services. It includes:

• advising most of the leading insurers on the development of new trust-related products and services, drafting suites of pro-forma trust documents and ad hoc technical queries.
• advising on trusts in the context of restructurings and insolvency, including customer and supplier protection trusts.
• working with the corporate and banking teams on issues where trustees are buying/selling/charging assets.
• assisting corporate trustees with trust and tax law issues arising in relation to unit trusts and co-ownership structures.
• advising on other commercial trust arrangements as and when required, e.g funeral trust products.

Charity law advice:

Charity law overlaps with trust law in a number of respects and so is also dealt with by the team. The focus is on advice to higher education clients on a wide range of charity law and tax issues – working closely with our Higher Education practice. Universities are both complex commercial entities and also charities subject to charity law, leading to complex and interesting challenges where the two interact. Examples of our work include:

• advice on risk management and Equality Act issues re gift acceptance;
• advising on the scope for re-purposing of endowment funds;
• dealing with charity law issues in relation to mergers (including advice on dealing with special trusts);
• advice on issues around governance and trustee effectiveness;
• advising on the structuring of commercial activities, trading and investments.

The other significant area of work is with the education finance team on issues arising from lending to charities (the scope and application of powers etc).

The Firm:

A truly international law firm with over 1,500 lawyers operating from locations throughout UK, Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East, and has achieved more Tier 1 rankings in the Legal 500 UK guide than any other firm.

If this role sounds of interest, please contact Dominic Roberts in confidence at dominic.roberts@qedlegal.com or on (+44) 7857 439 641