Shipping Litigation - Associate/Senior Associate

Our client is a Legal 500 ranked international law firm with a serious reputation in the maritime sector, and its London shipping team is looking to add an Associate or Senior Associate. Openings in this team come up rarely. The group sits within a wider marine and trade practice and handles both wet and dry work, with a strong contentious bias alongside a healthy flow of advisory and transactional instructions.

The Role:

You will act for a varied, international client base: P&I clubs, shipowners, cargo interests, liner operators, freight forwarders, and port and terminal operators. Work is likely to include:

• Recovery actions for substantial unpaid shipping and bunker debts
• Ship arrests and Admiralty proceedings, with strategic advice on enforcement, and acting for lenders looking to recover and sell vessels held as security
• Charterparty, bill of lading and wider commercial contract disputes, in the Commercial and Admiralty Courts and in LMAA and other arbitral forums
• Casualty matters, from collisions, groundings, fires and explosions to container incidents, salvage and wreck removal, together with General Average and complex multi-party claims
• Inquests following fatalities, and the jurisdictional, indemnity and contribution questions that follow them
• Non-contentious advice on vessel sharing arrangements, affreightment contracts, ship sale and purchase, port and terminal operations, and clients' standard trading terms
• Emergency response, where clients need clear, commercial advice at short notice.

The Candidate:

• A qualified Solicitor (or equivalent) at Associate or Senior Associate level
• Shipping or wider maritime experience, ideally on the contentious side, is preferred
• Equally comfortable running your own files and working closely within a team, and able to prioritise when the pressure is on
• A confident communicator with sound judgement about clients and colleagues, well organised and reliable on deadlines
• An appetite for business development, getting out into the market and raising the profile of the team.

The Opportunity:

This is a chance to build a career in a team with genuine depth in shipping, giving you exposure to High Court litigation and international arbitration as well as non-contentious work, and a front-row seat when casualties and emergencies happen. The firm is committed to inclusion and welcomes applicants from every route to qualification, including CILEx, as well as Lawyers returning to practice. If you do not tick every box but believe you could bring real value to the team, it is still well worth a conversation. This is a permanent, London-based role on standard full-time weekday hours.

For a confidential discussion about the role and the firm, please get in touch with James Wheelhouse, Associate Director.

Please note that where a level of preferred experience or qualification is indicated, this is a guideline only and does not preclude applications from candidates with more or less experience.

Our consultants will review your application and assess your suitability. We endeavour to respond to all applications within 72 hours, however due to the volume of applications we receive we may not be able to respond to every candidate individually and would advise that if you do not hear from us you should assume you are not successful in your application.

Jameson Legal acts as an employment business for temporary recruitment and as an employment agency for fixed term contract and permanent recruitment.