We are always looking for talented people to join us. If you are enthusiastic, pragmatic and want to join our friendly team to achieve your full potential, and help others achieve theirs, we would love to hear from you.

Our commercial team is part of our wider Business Services Team and is one of the areas of our business we are targeting for growth and development. We are looking for a new lawyer to join that team and be part of our expansion plans.

Joining the team, you’ll enjoy a wide variety of work. Many of your clients will be SMEs and owner-managed businesses, but you’ll also assist a range of clients from entrepreneurs and start-ups to multinationals and household names. In addition to a staple diet of general commercial contracts work (sale of goods and services, franchising, agency and distribution agreements etc), you will build experience in data protection, IP/IT work and some construction work.  You’ll also assist our highly-regarded corporate team with the contractual aspects of their transactions.

You don’t need experience in all these areas to apply, but you should have had at least a dedicated 6 month seat in commercial work during your training contract and ideally more than that. Working closely with our Commercial partner, you’ll benefit from a high level of personal support and encouragement to develop your legal skills and knowledge, improve your drafting skills to handle bespoke contracts and assist our clients to make commercially sound and appropriate arrangements. We pride ourselves on our ability to provide pragmatic solutions for clients in an approachable and down to earth manner.  We also encourage everyone to get involved in marketing and so we’ll expect you to have a talent for building relationships and an interest in building your skills in marketing and business development.

You’ll be able to take on as much responsibility as you can handle and the career prospects in this role are excellent.  Joining as a solicitor (or equivalent qualification) there will be a clear path ahead for promotion to associate and beyond. Promotions at FSP are based on merit and ability, not by strict levels of pqe. If you can show you have what it takes, we will recognise that.

This is an exciting time to be joining FSP as we are going through a period of significant development. We have invested heavily in our HR and Business Development functions and are about to begin rolling out a number of major new IT projects. In the past 12 months we’ve also established our own charity , the FSP Foundation, as the next step in our long established CSR initiative.

If you are interested in joining our commercial team, please submit your CV with a covering letter, or call our Head of People, Antonia Fowell, on 0118 951 6366 to discuss your interest in more detail.

Particular focus on:

• Negotiating tax aspects of share and business purchases (including tax warranties and tax covenant);
• Group restructurings/reorganisations;
• Designing employee incentives;
• Assessing income tax, CGT, VAT and stamp taxes on transactions; and
• The application of SEIS and EIS to investments.

The candidate should have a number of years of experience in tax related matters and be looking to join a team which gives the opportunity to develop a career in a supportive, friendly environment undertaking high-quality work for a wide range of clients from private individuals, entrepreneurs and investors to large corporates. There will also be the scope for the candidate to be involved in business development activities and share the development of the tax team moving forward.

FSP is known for its pragmatic, commercial and personal service and for forging long-term client relationships so we like to recruit down to earth people. As our clients, and the tax support they require, often varies you’ll gain great exposure to a range of different matters with plenty of responsibility.

We are open to considering applications from candidates with a minimum of 3-4 years of tax experience, across different levels of seniority, as there is scope for the candidate to join at associate, senior associate or partner level if the experience is at the right level

Our two-partner commercial dispute resolution team boasts some enviable blue chip clients and a caseload which includes complex domestic and cross-border disputes.  They are currently looking to recruit a solicitor level litigator to support them. As part of the team you’ll build your experience working collaboratively on some challenging disputes while also running your own caseload of more straightforward cases under appropriate supervision.

The role offers a significant level of variety and interest.  You will work across a range of sectors and work-types, which may include commercial contract disputes, construction, professional indemnity, insolvency, fraud, IP, international arbitration.  Clients will span many sectors, including automotive, financial services, leisure, fisheries, logistics and FMCG.

You’ll need to be resourceful, responsive and resilient, with the ability to grasp new challenges and areas of law quickly and accurately.  You’ll benefit from support and career development from highly regarded and experienced partners and our senior associate and access to cases of a quality hard to find elsewhere in Reading.  Ideally you will have at least 1 year’s post qualification experience in a litigation role, but we will look at strong NQs who gained a significant level of contentious experience during their training contract or in earlier paralegal roles, over 12 months or more.  Experience in each of the contentious areas we work in is not necessary, but you should have a strong grasp of general practice and procedure in general commercial litigation and an interest in a career which involves constant learning opportunities and new challenges.

We like to provide tailored and pragmatic solutions for our clients so being able to demonstrate a high level of client care is essential.

If the variety and challenge of this role appeals to you, we’d like to hear from you. Please apply with detailed CV and a covering letter explaining what you can bring to the role.