Associate

Department: Banking - Derivatives
PQE: 2+
Duration: Permanent 
Location: London 
Reports to: Partner

Reference no: 4349

The Department 

Banking and finance is at the heart of every economy, providing the means to help businesses expand and investors grow. Dentons’ Banking and Finance team operates at the industry’s forefront, working with innovative finance products across the world.
Our integrated global team of Banking and Finance lawyers and professionals offers an expansive breadth of insight, helping our clients to structure and document transactions that help to provide financing to virtually every industry. Since Dentons represents both finance providers and users, our clients benefit from counsel that understands the needs and wants of each party. 
Dentons’ extensive, deep sector-specific experience also ensures they are working with a team that’s fluent in our client's language and understands the local market. In fact, emerging jurisdictions often engage Dentons to assist in the development of banking and finance legislative frameworks.

The Team

We now have an opportunity for a mid-level Associate to join our industry-leading and growing DCM & Derivatives team in London, with a particular focus on Derivatives. This is an exciting and challenging role and is an excellent opportunity for an ambitious Derivatives lawyer looking to progress their career within a global firm.
You will work across a wide range of OTC and exchange traded derivatives transactions for both sell-side and buy-side clients, offering an opportunity to develop a broad skill set. The current practice is diverse – there is a routine flow of traditional derivative, securities lending and repo transactions, as well finance linked, structured credit, equity, FX, commodity and Islamic transactions.  As is now typical, a large proportion of the work will have a regulatory component. Therefore being flexible will be an advantage. You will work directly with some of the world's leading Banks and Financial Institutions and collaborate with experts throughout the wider firm and across Dentons' international offices. As a result, you will be exposed to a wide range of structured derivatives transactions in our Emerging Markets.
You will be encouraged to stretch yourself as a lawyer and to take an active role in developing client relationships, as well as playing a supervisory role to the junior members of the team.
You will have the support of an excellent team of PSLs and comprehensive legal training. The firm also offers an excellent structured personal and career development programme.
This role would be ideal for a mid-level associate (that is, not less than 2 years PQE) with solid derivatives experience.

Required experience, skills, and attributes

Technical Skills

• You will have solid derivatives experience gained within a top tier firm.
• An understanding of netting and collateral is a pre-requisite. In addition, an ability to draft and review derivatives opinions (covering capacity & authority, and netting and collateral issues) would be beneficial.
• You will have a good working understanding of the regulatory framework, primarily EMIR. Knowledge of MiFID II would be beneficial.
• You will have a good working knowledge of the standard industry master agreements (ISDAs, GMRAs, GMSLAs). Having a working knowledge of other industry standard documents (eg ISDA/IIFM TMA, EFET etc.) would be beneficial.
• Ideally English law qualified.
• Strong academic record, including a degree or equivalent.

Personal attributes

• Dedicated to exceptional client service – a willingness to become involved in client training would be useful.
• Excellent business development ability and demonstrates market focus.
• Strong financial and business awareness – we will expect you to be an active participant in the relevant ISDA Working Groups.
• Excellent problem solving and decision making skills.
• Exceptional interpersonal, communication and supervisory skills.
• Demonstrates good judgment and resilience skills.
• Shows strong initiative and drive and takes control of own career development.

Firm Profile

Dentons is the world's largest law firm, delivering quality and value to clients around the globe. Dentons is a leader on the Acritas Global Elite Brand Index, a BTI Client Service 30 Award winner and recognized by prominent business and legal publications for its innovations in client service, including founding Nextlaw Labs and the Nextlaw Global Referral Network. Dentons' polycentric approach and world-class talent challenge the status quo to advance client interests in the communities in which we live and work.  www.dentons.com. 

Diversity & Inclusion 

Essential to our success as a global law firm is our ability to attract and retain the best talent from a diverse range of backgrounds. We want a work environment where everyone can reach their potential and we have an inclusive culture which respects individual differences.

We undertake and support a number of internal and external initiatives aimed at increasing diversity within the profession and we encourage all our partners and staff to get involved. We welcome you to learn more about diversity and inclusion at Dentons.

Equal Opportunities

Dentons is committed to providing equal opportunities for all. We welcome applications from candidates with disabilities and support those in the workplace who have a disability. Any disability disclosure will be dealt with confidentially and sensitively and if you want to speak directly to a member of our team, please email recruitment.matters@dentons.com. 

NO AGENCIES PLEASE

If you are interested in applying for this position, we welcome direct applications via our careers page, but if you have any questions beforehand please email recruitment.matters@dentons.com – Enquiries only please, applications will not be accepted via email. 

Please note that we will not accept unsolicited CV's sent to the business, nor will we accept any associated terms of business.