Careers

Join a team that makes real changes

Bevan Brittan is a UK-Top 100 commercial law firm providing a comprehensive range of legal services from offices in Birmingham, Bristol Leeds and London.

The firm advises businesses across construction, energy & resource management, higher education and financial services, complementing the firm's market leadership within housing, local government and health and social care.

We currently employ over 500 people, including 80 Partners, and our award-winning teams provide construction, commercial, corporate, property, regulatory, employment and litigation (commercial and clinical negligence) legal advice.

Bevan Brittan is named among 'The Times Best Law Firms 2022' and has recently either won or been shortlisted for a number of prestigious awards including 'Legal Firm of the Year' at the Bristol Life Awards 2021.

We are driven by our 4 values: Relationships, Results, Reputation and Responsible. These give us a sense of purpose and ensure we always work collaboratively with clients and colleagues, continually improve, make the right choices and act with integrity.

Bevan Brittan is an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applicants from all backgrounds.

Rise to the Challenge

The operational responsibility for the delivery of the firm's technology services are entirely out-sourced and have been for over 12 years. Whilst this model has worked well for Bevan Brittan to date, the increased scale and complexity of the firm means that we would like to change the way the service is delivered. This presents an incredible opportunity to join the growing and ambitious organisation as IT Director.

For clarity, the firm will retain an outsourced model for operational service delivery, but as described further below, the business is looking for a genuinely strategic IT leader to provide Board-level ownership of the technology agenda across the firm. This is an opportunity created by growth and ambition. The services provided from the firm's IT partners is high-quality and works well. The new role-holder will provide the leadership to develop this further, and directly support the next phase of the firm's success.

Core responsibilities

• Ownership, delivery and on-going development of the firm's IT Strategy, ensuring it is tightly aligned to the Business Strategy and Plan.
• Work closely with the Risk function, and the firms Cyber Working Group, to lead the firm's response to cyber-risk challenges, including critical inputs to the firm's ISO27001 and CyberEssentials+ accreditation activities.
• Representation of the IT function, and technology services more generally, at the firm's main Board.
• Operational ownership of the delivery of IT service to the firm. Critically, this includes:
• Day-to-day management and development of the relationships and services provided by the firm's IT Service Partners (including managed IT service partner, managed network partner, managed print partner, application development partner, cyber-security partner).
• Commercial ownership of these key contracts.
• Ensuring services provided meet key service level targets and contractual commitments.
• Maintenance of the close working culture between Bevan Brittan and the managed IT service provider in particular, ensuring the outsourced team genuinely feel part of the Bevan Brittan team and embrace Bevan Brittan culture and values.
• Development of excellent relationships with stakeholders throughout the firm to understand business plans and challenges. Where appropriate identifying ideas and opportunities as to how technology can be used to assist and add value.
• Close collaboration with the Bevan Brittan Transformation Team, and outsourced partners to develop and successfully deliver an ambitious portfolio of programmes and projects.
• Leadership and co-ordination of the firm's 'Innovation and IT Committee'. This is a sub-committee of main Board and is an incubator and governance hub to identify, assess and track progress of technology and change developments across the firm.
• Provision of strategic advice to the firm, acting as a balance to the firm's strategic IT partners. Will have close involvement and decision making responsibility in all technology procurement activity.
• With the firm increasingly utilising cloud-based technologies, create a function whereby architectural understanding, management of integrations, and management of data flows is entirely understood. This will include cataloguing and management of key cloud-supplier relationships.

Practical Responsibilities

At a more practical level, work activities will include:

• Ensure regular key supplier account meetings are taking place providing robust supplier management and contract management controls are embedded.
• Production of monthly reports to the Board tracking the performance of IT service, and Board level risks, issues and opportunities.
• Liaising with the Information Security Manager, ISO consultants, cyber-insurers and cyber-partners in relation to audits of our cyber-security and the development of our cyber-security defences.
• Support the legal teams in the production of responses to client tenders, with a relevant focus on IT controls, developments and cyber-protection.
• Formulating and maintaining Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BC / DR) plans for IT, based on Business Impact Analysis (in line with the ISO22301 standard).
• Chairing the firm's Major IT Incident Group in the event of a major BC / DR event impacting IT services. This will include the co-ordination of all key stakeholders to ensure timely restoration of service (including internal and external supplier partners, insurers etc).
• Proactive development of the relationship between IT and the Risk function ensuring recognition, documentation and remediation of all key IT risks.
• Provide input to the firms Budget and Portfolio Planning processes with regard to the IT function.
• Point of escalation for Heads of Department / Partners etc for all issues relating to IT.
• Working closely with the Business Service Directors and Department Heads.
• Working closely with the Director of Transformation and Director of Knowledge on Innovation and Transformation including any projects that fall outside the IT Strategy.
• Board level position reporting into the Managing Partner

Who we are looking for

The ideal candidate will have the following skills and experience:

• Board level exposure and expertise of running complex IT services within a large UK business.
• Exposure to delivering these services within a law firm is preferred, but not essential.
• Clear understanding and experience of running managed IT service contracts and related services.
• Excellent supplier management.
• Experience in delivery of cyber-security risk management services. Direct exposure to ISO27001 / CyberEssentials+ preferred.
• Demonstrable experience of development and delivery of IT Strategy, closely aligned to Business Strategy.
• Operational and change budget management experience of up to £3m p.a.
• Excellent IT and legal IT industry knowledge.
• Exposure to complex cloud-delivered service architectures.
• Understanding of architectural landscaping and mapping to industry standards.
• Excellent Project Management experience and skill.
• Able to demonstrate innovative idea generation, leading to successful business adoption.
• Excellent communicator, both written and verbal.

Work-life Balance

We offer a substantial benefits package to all employees, which includes 25 days holiday (plus the option to buy up to an additional 5 days), a generous pension scheme and private medical insurance through Vitality (including "phone a GP service", discounted gym membership and 'Vitality' Partner discounts).

All of our people are entitled to a biennial private health assessment through Nuffield Health and are included in the group life assurance scheme. We also have an Employee Assistance Programme (free telephone support and counselling service) and a cycle scheme (Save Tax & NI on a bike for cycling to work).

Where possible, we want to offer all Bevan Brittan people flexibility to work their week in a way that suits them - we operate a hybrid working model based on the needs of our clients, teams and that of the individual. Our core business hours are 9am - 5:15pm Monday to Friday, however we are open to individuals working more flexibly around those times and would welcome a conversation with you if you have any questions.

Responsible Business

To us, being a responsible business is second nature; a core part of Bevan Brittan's identity, running through our culture and embodied by the clients we serve.

Bevan Brittan seeks to play an active role within its local office communities. Through regular fundraising events, support for local initiatives and annual charity donations at Christmas, we have established a culture of giving within the firm. In December 2021 we donated a total of £60,000 to our four regional office charities, with each charity receiving £15,000 to help fund their vital services.

We want to demonstrate our commitment to these causes through actions rather than words; colleagues from across the firm are already heavily involved, living and breathing the four pillars of our Responsible Business strategy:

• Community Engagement
• Environmental Sustainability
• Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
• Wellbeing

Collectively, these four pillars ensure we look after our colleagues' wellbeing; offer an environment in which all can progress on merit, regardless of personal circumstances or background; give something back to the communities in which we work; and protect the environment.

Bevan Brittan is proudly a carbon neutral firm. We have achieved the UN's Climate Neutral Now accreditation and our environmental sustainability plan is focussed on achieving our net zero carbon target.

Each lawyer has the opportunity to undertake pro bono legal work for local charities and not-for-profit organisations. This has seen colleagues support the Great Western Air Ambulance Charity (Bristol), Moseley Road Swimming Baths (Birmingham), Yorkshire Cat Rescue (Leeds), Great Western Credit Union (London), and several others.