Senior Knowledge Lawyer at Baker McKenzie

Job description

The Johannesburg Office of Baker McKenzie is looking to employ a strong candidate into the Senior Knowledge Lawyer role. The successful incumbent will be responsible for drafting and reviewing standard form precedents and other legal content, as well as ensuring content development is progressive.

Responsibilities

• Driving preparation, finalisation and refinement of further key standard form precedents (SFPs) for the Corporate, Banking & Finance and Dispute Resolution practice groups (and for the remaining practice groups, where appropriate) in line with the Baker McKenzie global style guide;
• Participating in drafting and reviewing SFPs where necessary to share the workload of our own fee earners tasked with the development of precedents;
• Creating an intranet page based Knowledge Management repository housing SFPs, other routine advice and knowledge materials for each practice group, in conjunction with IT;
• Overseeing migration of Johannesburg SFPs to Harmony global knowledge platform;
• Taking responsibility for ensuring that SFPs and other knowledge materials are maintained up to date;
• Formulating and delivering internal (per practice group) and client focused external training programmes, involving our lawyers as required;
• Identifying knowledge gaps and working to fill these on an ongoing basis.
• Identifying industry, practice group and client specific hot topics for client alerts, thought leadership pieces and client newsletters, in conjunction with other Professional Support Lawyers; and writing or commissioning content for these from team lawyers;
• Acting as liaison between our Business Development team and lawyers on client current awareness initiatives.;
• Coordinating and supporting contributions from our lawyers to Baker McKenzie global industry and practice group publications such as the Global Mergers & Acquisitions Handbook;
• Driving and taking ownership of adoption by all Johannesburg office lawyers of Knowledge Management systems and tools
• Establishing herself/himself as Johannesburg offices Knowledge Management liaison with global Knowledge Management communities across industry and practice groups, and representing the office on monthly Knowledge Management community calls to ensure we stay abreast of developments and obtain maximum benefit from global Knowledge Management initiatives.
• Ensuring that text books and online library resources remain current and assessing cost of and value of procuring new publications (consider if we would still need the current staff);
• Ensuring alignment and consistency in Knowledge Management activities between Johannesburg practice groups; and between local and global practice and industry groups.
• Monthly reporting to Johannesburg Knowledge Management committee comprising Johannesburg practice group Knowledge Management partners.

Candidate requirements

Technical and Specialist Skills:

• A South African qualified lawyer with excellent academics credentials
• Must be able to communicate at executive level
• Intermediate/advance MS Office knowledge
• First rate technical skills needed to support the departments
• Strong research capabilities and confidence, with partner guidance, to move outside "comfort zone"
• Commerciality and demonstrable business development experience
• Excellent written communication and drafting skills
• Initiative and proactivity
• Maturity and gravitas
• Strong service orientation a "client first" culture
• Ability to develop strong relationships with clients and to take responsibility for this relationship
• High work standards
• Flexible work practices
• Ability to work well in both a team and individually
• A keenness to learn

Personal Qualities:

• Client Care
• High standard of customer service
• Enjoys high level of interaction with clients/staff
• Culture of Friendship
• Organisational Responsibilities
• Ability to work under pressure and keep calm
• Ability to meet deadlines
• Ability to prioritise
• Ability to deal with complex issues
• Ability to work unsupervised and on one’s own initiative
• Use of initiative and be proactive in approach to work
• Professionalism
• Ability to provide a client focused service
• Smart and professional in appearance
• Displays sensitivity and confidentiality all times
• First class communication skills
• Good timekeeping
• Willingness & Enthusiasm
• Ability to work as part of a team, flexible & helpful approach to work
• Willing to be flexible in terms of work allocated
• Highly self-motivated & resilient
• Diversity & Inclusion
• Respects and enjoys the diversity of cultural, social and academic backgrounds found in the Firm