Directories-listed Private Wealth team in Leeds is expanding and this team is looking to hire a Legal Director, with at least 8 years’ Private Wealth experience to assist with their growth. The caseload will include a broad and varied mix of Private Client work including Wills, Succession Planning, IHT planning, Trusts, Administration of Estates and LPAs. A large proportion of your clients will be high net worth or ultra-high net worth individuals and business owners. Clients will often have cross border issues and deceased estates will regularly be high value and complex. As Legal Director you will also be involved in firm-wide projects and take responsibility for certain tasks outside of the day-to-day legal work, such as strategic business development and team supervision, and learning and development.
To be successful you will need to have a minimum of 8 years’ relevant experience as either a solicitor or legal executive, working for a well-regarded regional or national firm. In certain cases (eg. where the duration has been significant and your caseload has been technically complex), our client will consider pre-qualification experience. You will also need previous experience of working with high and ultra-high net worth clients. You will be used to managing your own clients and cases and be a trusted advisor to business owners, with excellent technical expertise. Your experience will span across lifetime planning, estates, inheritance tax planning and probate. In respect of probate work, whilst they have a separate contentious private client team, they are regularly engaged to act as independent administrator of highly contentious estates. You will therefore ideally have experience, and be comfortable, administering the complexities of contentious families in probate cases. Having experience of successfully supervising members of a team with complex caseloads is essential. The ability to generate your own work from existing professional connections would also be desirable but not essential. Our client is also keen to hear from candidates with cross-border experience, but again this is not essential experience to have. Ideally you will be STEP qualified, but if not STEP qualified alternative qualifications/ experience should be evidenced.