Senior Practice Manager (US Corporate)
A&O Shearman

A&O Shearman is a new global industry-leading law firm, with nearly 50 offices in 29 countries worldwide. Our fluency in English law, US law, and the laws of the world's most dynamic markets, enables us to provide unmatched insight and seamless delivery to clients. We work on challenging and important deals and disputes that have the potential to shape the future.

We offer exceptional opportunities for our people; opportunities to work for the world's leading businesses; to transform the status quo, and to deliver your best work, helping you and your career to thrive, while delivering unparalleled outcomes for our clients.

Whether you're helping clients solve complex challenges, transforming the ways we manage our business, or ensuring the smooth-running of our operations, this is an environment where you can belong and excel. We provide first-rate training and development, we are committed to diversity, equity and inclusion and we provide support and ways of working that help you optimize your wellbeing.

What truly defines a career with us? We recruit the best and ask for the best of you. And together, we will redefine success.

Department purpose
The U.S. Corporate Department encompasses several practice groups, including U.S. Capital Markets, CEPG, Tax, as well as Global Financial Markets and Real Estate. Together, these groups are comprised of 37 partners across the Americas. The global management of these practice groups is overseen by the Practice Group Leader, with support from a Global COO and Global Heads of HR, Finance, and Business Development. To further enhance operational efficiency, the COO seeks additional support for the U.S. side of these practices.

Role purpose
The purpose of the role is to provide dedicated support to practice group co-heads and COOs. The main overall purpose of this role is to contribute to the development of the practice group strategy and business plan and to help the US and global management team to implement this strategy and its priorities.

Role and responsibilities
The responsibilities of this role include, but are not limited to:

• Contributing to the development of broader strategies and plans. Managing, prioritizing, and ensuring the timely follow-up on a diverse range of issues for the Practice Group Leadership.
• Providing hands-on, cross-functional business advice, support, and project leadership to the U.S. leadership team, in coordination with Finance and HR. This includes collaborating with Finance, BD, and HR to ensure that projects and tasks for the U.S. M&A team, as well as other relevant practice groups, are completed effectively and efficiently.
• Ensuring that the Practice Group Heads/Co-Heads and management team are equipped with the necessary information to fulfil their management duties and that these duties are implemented via weekly management meetings.
• Coordinating with Finance to obtain statistics on billings and collections for partners in the Americas and diaries for partners and associates to prepare analyses of billings, collections and activity level trends for budget purposes and otherwise as well as assisting in monitoring and reporting on the timeliness of billings, collections and diaries.
• Working together with the Global Management team in optimizing team efficiency and streamlining processes related to the annual cycle (Practice Group partner conferences, management roadshows/regional travel, partner compensation, budget and investment plan, PSC, lateral hires, annual partner reviews, compliance certification process etc.);
• Supporting US management in preparing agendas and materials for regular meetings and management trips (Global Practice Group Management meetings, Americas partner and management meetings, ExCo/Board input, SteerCo integration meetings);
• Working with the leadership team to plan office visits. This includes maintaining a plan of future trips/travel, preparing content for associate town halls and/or partner meetings, arranging 1:1 meetings, and working with US BD to record and monitor actions and follow up;
• Working together with the US PG leads, US BD Leads and the global Management team on the content and overall delivery of the Practice Group Partner Conferences (Global or Americas)
• Supporting PGLs, the global COO and Global Head of Finance in the planning and execution of the annual global compensation process and budget process for the practice.
• Supporting the Global Head of HR with partner candidate preparation, e.g., organizing mock interviews, keeping up to date records of candidate slates etc.
• Managing internal communications; working with COOs and management team to originate content for departmental updates, slides for partner conferences / partner meetings, meeting minutes, presentations to associates and business planning templates;
• Working closely with the Global Practice Group Co-Heads, COOs, HR Head and/or Head of Finance on various partner matters, e.g. equity progression, gate reviews, core ladder promotions and documenting outcomes;
• Provide ad-hoc support alongside Global management for both ad-hoc and/or ongoing projects or initiatives.

Key relationships

• US Practice Group leaders
• Americas partners
• Global COOs, Global Head of Marketing/ Head of HR/ Head of Finance, US HR Managers
• US Corporate business function leaders and team members in BD, HR and Finance

Key requirements
It is essential that the post holder is:

• Able to contribute to discussions in meetings of management and partners with confidence.
• Able to work collaboratively and think creatively.
• Able to challenge and shape an agenda and influence others to get things done.
• Able to operate with tact and discretion pragmatically in an environment where issues are confidential, complex and lines of reporting are ambiguous.
• Able to interpret law firm financial reports accurately and with confidence.
• Ideally 5-10 years of relevant business management experience in professional services firms
• Aware of and able to implement relevant Finance, HR and other Firm policies in respect of partners and staff.
• Capacity to understand and juggle a wide range of issues and projects at the same time, as well as to prioritize and manage own and others' time effectively.
• Able to produce high quality work product on tight deadlines on projects requested on limited notice.
• Proficiency with PowerPoint and excel as well as understanding financial statements and financial trends.
• Working with a solutions-oriented mindset, seeking to understand first based on data and insight from a range of sources across functions or practice areas.
• Able to draft appropriate high quality internal communications in a range of media (emails, presentations etc.) and communicate clearly and effectively.

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