Pensions KDL

We will offer you a place where you can be yourself and where there are no limits on what you can achieve. With us, you can take ownership of your career and have honest conversations throughout. You would join an ambitions firm with a clear strategy for profitable growth where you can get early responsibility and early involvement in growing the business. Here you can expect a competitive and fair reward as well as recognition based on all round performance. This forms part of our internal promise to you, The Deal, between the firm and its employees.

We are looking to recruit a Knowledge Development Lawyer, into the growing and ambitious Pensions Advisory Practise. Our team of experts have helped trustee boards, employers, charities, institutions and public bodies to meet their pensions obligations.

By drawing together a large group of specialists each with a wide range of experience, we can develop individual solutions to our clients’ pensions issues. We are based in one location so that we can work together to develop solutions to complex problems.
Whilst we are often involved in cutting-edge pensions law, we are also known for our practical, commercial and plain advice on the day-to-day pension issues. We don’t over-complicate the complicated.

Our pensions team also provides pensions advice to individuals and advice to employers and trustees operating overseas pension arrangements.

Highly ranked in the Legal 500, with a Tier 1 contentious pensions team, we are experts in setting up, reconstructing and closing all manner of pension schemes.

The aim of this role is to support the Pension group in fulfilling their strategic objectives.

• Technical legal expertise - Maintaining your own and the team's cutting-edge knowledge of law and practice as it relates to Pensions including keeping the global team and other relevant practice groups up-to-date with legal and market developments through training, organising team meetings, preparing current awareness updates, responding to technical queries and creating guidance notes and precedents; horizon scanning to identify thought leadership opportunities and trends to help the team attract new clients, develop their profile in the international market and suggest innovative ways of delivering services more efficiently to clients; providing direct support on client matters, where appropriate.
• Client-facing activities - Working with partners and other fee earners to ensure relevant and appropriate legal developments are communicated to the firm's clients in a coherent, proactive and timely manner through drafting legal updates and briefings and co-ordinating client seminars, including carrying out research, preparing slides and materials, and presenting/organising speakers, as appropriate; representing the team in external professional networks/activities.
• Legal training - Identifying relevant topics and training needs for the pension group and designing and presenting sessions (where appropriate), organising speakers (including external speakers where relevant), ensuring that fee earners outside London and in other relevant practice groups can effectively consume the training, overseeing arrangements and monitoring attendance.
  Standard forms/precedents - Developing and maintaining key precedents and clause libraries for the pension group. Working with the firm's Document Automation Manager to automate the drafting of key precedents to improve recoveries and manage risk on the groups' matters.
• Knowledge management - Working with the teams to implement procedures to capture, develop, store and maintain the groups' know-how resources, including precedents/examples of previous advice, and helping to maintain user-friendly know-how banks in Sherlock (the firm's global knowledge repository) and to populate the groups' know-how folders.
• Know-how delivery systems - Developing and maintaining the team's intranet pages and social media presence; working with the Legal Information Officers to configure news aggregation tools so the appropriate underlying information sources are tailored for the pension group.
• Collaboration and innovation - Co-ordinating with other practice groups to arrange cross-departmental training and current awareness to keep the teams updated on relevant developments in other areas; mentoring junior members of the team in establishing and maintaining efficient and profitable working practices, including working with the partners and our Innovation team to monitor developments and implement appropriate changes to the way we deliver client service.
• Collaboration with BD - Working with the Business Development team to provide input on the legal aspects of pitch and other marketing documents.
• Miscellaneous - participating in regular meetings of the firm's global KDLs; being a champion and ambassador for rolling out new know-how systems and encouraging use of existing systems by the pension group, including conducting inductions of new joiners..
• Current awareness – Assisting with drafting and formatting current awareness bulletins on Pension topics including specialist sub groups.
• Enquiries – Carrying out legal research on questions raised by fee earners (mainly in London but also overseas) using external electronic research services (Practical Law, Lexis Library, Westlaw, etc.) and our internal resources and presenting the results in a user-friendly way. Responding to information retrieval requests using internal and external resources/sources.
• Precedents – Assisting with the maintenance of the standard form precedents and guidance notes in the Pension practice in order to keep them up to date.
• Know-how management - Assisting with the development, implementation and support for processes for efficiently gathering and updating know-how in Sherlock, the firm's knowledge platform (including setting up know-how folders and knowledge trees and gathering know-how at team meetings, during floorwalks and through know-how contribution schemes).
• Meetings support - Assisting with administration of group know how meetings (including drafting agendas, taking meeting notes and following up action points).
• System testing - Participating in testing of modified and new knowledge delivery systems as a "super user".
• Keeping up-to-date - Keeping abreast of emerging issues in pensions and becoming familiar with other key pension resources.

Most of our roles are hybrid, meaning that colleagues benefit from working in our office and remotely. We are happy to discuss this and other flexible working arrangements with you as part of the application and interview process.

• Demonstrates the Stephenson Harwood values of individuality, commitment, teamwork and straight talking.
• Cooperative and collaborative in approach and is able to develop excellent working relationships at all levels and roles.
• Commercial awareness and client-focused approach.
• High professional standards with commitment to quality work product.
• Excellent drafting, research and presentation skills.
• Exceptional accuracy and attention to detail.
• Understanding of different learning styles.
• Resilient with the ability to handle set-backs and pressure.
• Self-motivated, flexible and proactive.
• Ability to acquire, consolidate and apply fundamental and up-to-date knowledge of the law and market practice.
• Active participant in self-development.
• Lateral thinker with initiative to establish, implement and complete projects.
• Comfortable with IT.
• Highly organised and able to work to deadlines with the ability to manage multiple workstreams and prioritise realistically.
• Personality to make an impact in the team, excellent communicator and comfortable with interacting with and presenting to colleagues at all levels.

This job description is indicative only and does not represent an exhaustive list of responsibilities. The firm reserves the right to alter or change the responsibilities at any time, in line with the firm's strategy and business needs.  

With 8 offices worldwide and with our headquarters based in London, Stephenson Harwood is a law firm where our people are committed to achieving the goals of our clients - listed and private companies, institutions, and individuals across the globe. Our mix of expertise and culture results in a combination of deep local insight and the capability to provide a seamless international service.

Our experience encompasses corporate, commercial litigation and arbitration, employment, pensions and private wealth, finance, marine and international trade, and real estate and projects.

We assemble teams of bright thinkers to match our clients' needs and give the right advice from the right person at the right time. Dedicating the highest calibre of legal talent to overcome the most complex issues, we deliver pragmatic, expert advice that is set squarely in the real world.

We understand the power of diversity in delivering that high calibre advice to our clients. We want to attract diverse talent and we particularly encourage applications from underrepresented demographics.

Our values:

Individuality - We encourage creativity and develop talent
Commitment - To be the best and deliver the highest standard
Teamwork - We work together to build close, long-term relationships
Straight talking - We say what we mean and do what we say

These values express the personality of the individuals within our firm. They are the behaviours we encourage in our people and the standards which inform our decisions and actions.

Our vision into 2026
To be a successful firm where talented people work together in an entrepreneurial environment, building long term client relationships.

This vision is about who we want to be, as well as who we are. It is as much about our values as about our character – the attributes we want to see from all of our people. It also reflects the importance of remaining independent - a clear sign that we are confident in our own future. That's how we unlock our entrepreneurial spirit, advising our clients with top performing teams.

A key part of the 2026 strategy is to focus on five core sectors: decarbonisation, life sciences, private capital & funds, technology, and transportation & trade. These have been identified as crucial in the drive for accelerated profitable growth.