Solicitor - Employment

Smith Partnership is a leading law firm in the East Midlands and Staffordshire, employing around 200 colleagues across 5 offices, who recently celebrated winning the Sunday Times Best Places to Work 2026.

We are looking for a proactive and strategic employment lawyer to join our firm, with substantial opportunities for advancement. 

The firm has a thriving employment law practice with a large quantity of retained commercial clients and an excellent reputation for providing quality service. The department also boasts an excellent reputation for providing settlement agreement advice to individuals. 

We consider the role to be an amazing opportunity for an employment lawyer who wants to take the next step in their career. You would be coming into a department with an existing client base, an excellent reputation, and a great team. The role also provides for a clear pathway to partnership should this be desired.

The location for the role is flexible, with hybrid working available, and the potential to work out of any of our offices. 

You will be providing first-line support and representation to our existing employer client base, developing new clients through marketing and business development initiatives, advising individuals on settlement agreements, and providing employment law support to our other commercial practices.

The role will include opportunities for developing and implementing strategies to expand and enhance the employment law practice; building strong relationships with clients and collaborating with our other commercial departments; and mentoring colleagues in the team to foster their own growth and professional development.  

THE KEY REQUIREMENTS

• A qualified solicitor with experience in employment law
• Business development skills and client relationship management
• Excellent communication and negotiation skills
• Knowledge of both contentious and non-contentious employment matters
• A commitment to working within a collaborative and high-performance team culture
• Proficient IT skills, particularly case management systems and M365

THE BENEFITS AND PERKS

• 25 days’ annual leave, plus bank holidays increasing on length of service
• Birthday leave
• Pension Scheme
• Medicare Health Scheme
• Car parking
• Smith Savings Scheme for discounts at various retailers

THE NEXT STEP

Please note the advert will be closed and removed once we have received a sufficient number of applications. To avoid disappointment, we encourage you to submit your application as soon as possible. For further details please contact the HR team on: 01332 225225. 

To find out more about the department, here.

NO AGENCIES

Smith Partnership request that recruitment agencies do not speculatively submit CVs to us unless explicitly asked to do so by us.

Any CVs sent to us on a speculative basis will not be recognised and we will not accept liability for any fee or commission should we subsequently employ a candidate who applied to us directly or was introduced by another agency, that may also have been submitted speculatively by an uninstructed agency. In the event that an agency's correspondence includes a disclaimer indicating otherwise, our policy above will prevail.