Managing Associate, Banking & Finance

Our Banking & Finance team advises banks, alternative lenders, investors, public sector bodies and corporate borrowers on a broad range of financing transactions across the UK and internationally.

Recognised in Chambers, we combine high-quality work with a genuinely collaborative culture. As our practice continues to grow, we are looking for an experienced and ambitious Managing Associate to join our Bristol team.

This is an excellent opportunity for a senior banking lawyer who wants to take a leading role within a growing, entrepreneurial and nationally integrated practice. You'll have significant responsibility for transactions and client relationships, alongside the opportunity to help develop junior colleagues and contribute to the continued growth of the practice.

Based in our Bristol office, you'll be part of our Bristol Banking & Finance practice and our wider national team.

What you'll be doing

You'll work closely with partners and colleagues across the practice on a broad range of transactions including:

• Real estate finance
• Leveraged and acquisition finance
• Corporate lending
• Refinancings and restructurings
• Cross-border financing transactions

As a Managing Associate, you'll have the opportunity to:

• Lead financing transactions from inception to completion, taking responsibility for matter strategy and delivery.
• Act as a key point of contact for clients, providing clear, pragmatic and commercially focused advice.
• Manage transactions and coordinate input from colleagues across different practice areas, offices and jurisdictions.
• Build and deepen client relationships, becoming a trusted adviser to key clients.
• Supervise, support and develop associates and more junior lawyers within the team.
• Work closely with partners on business development, client opportunities and the continued growth of the practice.
• Develop your own profile and areas of expertise within the wider Banking & Finance practice.

What we are looking for

We are looking for a talented and commercially minded banking lawyer with strong technical capabilities and substantial experience of managing financing transactions.

You'll be comfortable taking the lead on matters, exercising sound judgement and managing transactions with a high degree of autonomy, while knowing when to involve partners or wider specialists.

You'll enjoy working directly with clients and will bring a practical, solutions-focused approach to complex transactions.

You'll also be someone who:

• Builds strong and trusted relationships with clients and colleagues.
• Demonstrates excellent commercial judgement and understands the wider context in which clients operate.
• Can lead and manage complex matters effectively, balancing competing priorities and deadlines.
• Takes responsibility for the quality and delivery of work across a matter.
• Enjoys supervising, coaching and supporting the development of junior lawyers.
• Is interested in building their own professional profile and contributing to business development.
• Wants to play an active role in the development and growth of the wider Banking & Finance practice.

The role offers significant scope to develop your practice and client relationships, while also providing opportunities to become involved in one or more of our key industry sectors.

What you'll bring

To be successful in this role, you will ideally have:

• Significant post-qualification experience as a solicitor qualified in England & Wales or Scotland, operating at or ready to step into Managing Associate level.
• Strong experience across banking and finance transactions gained in private practice or an equivalent in-house environment.
• A proven ability to lead transactions and manage matters effectively.
• Excellent technical, drafting and analytical skills.
• The confidence and judgement to provide clear, practical and commercially focused advice directly to clients.
• Strong communication, relationship-building and stakeholder management skills.
• Experience of supervising and developing more junior lawyers.
• A proactive and collaborative approach to working with clients, partners and colleagues.

Why join us?

Joining our Banking & Finance team means becoming part of a highly regarded practice offering:

• High-quality domestic and international work.
• A senior role with meaningful ownership of transactions and client relationships.
• Direct access to partners and involvement in the development of the practice.
• The opportunity to supervise and develop talented junior lawyers.
• A collaborative and supportive national team.
• The opportunity to build your profile, client relationships and areas of specialism.
• A strong platform for continued career progression.

If you are looking for an opportunity to take the next step in your career, lead high-quality transactions and play a meaningful role in the growth of an ambitious Banking & Finance practice, we would love to hear from you.

We continually work hard to create an open culture that sets us apart from other firms. Our culture gives us much more of a human feel and has helped us earn the Great Place to Work® certification in the UK, based entirely on feedback from our people.  Recognising our commitment to creating a high-trust workplace where people feel valued, supported and empowered to succeed.

As signatories to the Mindful Business Charter, it's important to us that our people are able to maintain healthy and happy lives, both in and out of work. We have a number of resources and initiatives designed to support health and wellbeing and we're very happy to talk flexible working.

Through our DEI initiatives we create an environment in which difference is valued. We have an Diversity, Equity and Inclusion team, and an Inclusive Recruitment Lead, who all work with our colleague networks (we currently have firm supported networks for race, ethnicity, and cultural heritage, LGBTQ+, disabilities, neurodiversity, families, and women's career development and we're in constant dialogue with our people about how we expand our networks to better support everybody). Find out more about DEI at WBD here. We encourage applicants from all social backgrounds, ethnicities, disabilities, gender identities and sexual orientations.

We are committed to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible to all. If you have a disability or long term condition and need us to make any adjustments to give you the best possible recruitment process, please let us know by contacting the recruiter on the right hand side of this page. Please also let us know if you need this job advert or the application form in a different format.

We will offer an interview to candidates with a disability or long-term condition who meet the minimum criteria for this role. You can opt into this scheme within the application form. Your response to this question is only used for this purpose, is only visible to the recruitment team and is not used for data monitoring. 

We are an in-house recruitment team and will always aim to fill our roles directly in the first instance. If you're an agency, please click here for ways that you can work with us.