Monthly gross salary from €2,000

Function Overview & Practice Area

This is an exciting opportunity for a candidate with an interest in the law to be part of a global knowledge team and develop an understanding of global data, cybersecurity and intellectual property (IP) law.

These are fast-moving topics that are already close to the hearts of our clients and of ever-growing importance to businesses in almost all sectors of the economy.

The role sits within our Global IP / Data practice and will provide excellent opportunities to:

• gain practical experience in areas such as data protection/privacy, data transactions and regulation, patent litigation, general IP and cybersecurity

• work with our friendly global team of knowledge and legal professionals at a leading, and highly respected international firm

• assist with a broad mix of tasks covering both litigious and transactional work, including research, drafting, legal tech and business development

Freshfields’ global Knowledge function connects people and knowledge to enable the firm’s lawyers to provide market-leading client service, to grow the business of the firm and strengthen client relationships, and to support the firm’s lawyers in developing their legal skills, while focusing on value, quality and efficiency. Our Knowledge & Information Services team plays a critical role in ensuring the firm’s lawyers have access to curated internal knowledge collections and external resources relevant to their work and support research activities and current awareness.

Key responsibilities and deliverables

Knowledge & Insight capture: Ensuring knowledge insights and knowhow from client mandates are captured (e.g. alongside Knowledge Lawyers in line with relevant practice area processes).

Current awareness (internal and external facing): supporting the creation and sharing of updates, insights and commentary on legal, regulatory and market developments – this may involve conducting research, collating materials, tracking cases, legislation or other developments or key topics (which may support the production of external facing content such as blogs, briefings and client presentations), drafting summaries and updates (incl. first drafts for external/client facing updates or K materials and internal updates) and maintaining topics pages on our Knowledge SharePoint. 

Knowledge collections management: Collating and maintaining our internal knowledge collections, including uploading knowhow and tagging (adhering to our global standards and governance protocols), creating and maintaining topics pages, reviewing and curating materials – this requires the ability to understand, abstract and disseminate key information about the relevant knowhow (with guidance from relevant Knowledge Lawyers).

Internal K products creation/updating: Supporting the Knowledge Lawyers and lawyers in the practice groups on the creation and updating of internal knowledge products (eg standard forms, templates and practice notes – including automating documents).

Information on resources: Maintaining and updating information on relevant SharePoints and other tools used to house and disseminate information about our internal and external resources.

External resource expertise: Developing a comprehensive understanding of the external online databases and resources relevant to the practice area, with the ability to search and retrieve content efficiently and effectively and guide others in doing so, guiding others in setting up alerts, and participating in trials of new products, occasional liaison with vendors on queries.  

Resources training and guidance: Supporting resources training for lawyers and other business services colleagues on how to use the Knowledge SharePoints, other internal knowledge tools (e.g. Athena) and external resources in conjunction with other Knowledge & Information Services colleagues – including helping to develop e-learnings and guidance materials to support direct access.

Research & signposting: Helping users orient their own searches, including directing them to specific internal or external resources, and responding to queries from lawyers in the practice groups or other business services colleagues; this will involve (where appropriate) researching and locating sources and commentary from internal and external resources (including confirming if sources are available), answering simpler queries outright and seeking guidance from Knowledge Lawyers or more senior members of the Knowledge & Information Services team on more complex requests as needed. Signposting users to relevant materials (incl. sign-posting to any user guides and password re-set guidance to access external materials). 

External resource management: As part of the wider team, occasionally classifying and cataloguing new titles, and updating our online library system and relevant SharePoints as required. Occasional travel to London to support the management of physical libraries and hard copy resources in the London office. As part of wider team, conducting audits of books, journals and external databases, from time to time, to ensure relevance/value and to identify competitors as part of renewal process.

Compliance with policies: Being aware of copyright and compliance policies and adhering to them when disseminating materials.

Supporting external vendor management: Working with Global Procurement and other Knowledge & Information Services colleagues on contract renewals and new purchases of resources in line with our global subscriptions policy, including occasionally assisting with purchase orders and invoices for resources specific to the area.

Key requirements

Highly Desirable

• Degree in law.

• Evidence of interest in data protection, AI, IP/patent law and cybersecurity.

• Experience of working in a law firm (eg as a paralegal, knowledge assistant or in a library/research role) and/or understanding of legal products/services or professional services experience is desirable.

• SharePoint skills, content publishing, database maintenance and ability to upload content to websites (full training will be available).

• German language skills (not essential).

Essential

• Degree educated or equivalent.

• Research skills.

• Highly IT literate, including excellent command of Microsoft Office 365 (including Excel).

• Good commercial awareness.

• Confident individual.

• Strongly self-motivated with the ability to use their initiative and the ability to work on long term projects at the same time as day-to-day tasks.

• Excellent communication skills.

• Business proficiency in English (both oral and written).

• A team player capable of building good working relationships.

• Organisational and administrative skills, with attention to detail.