Legal Director

Job Title: Legal Director

Team: Insurance/Reinsurance All Lines

Location: Singapore

Role

Kennedys Legal Solutions is seeking a Legal Director with experience providing complex coverage advice across the range of financial lines insurance risks underwritten in the APAC region (including, but not limited to, directors' and officers', professional indemnity, crime/BBB, W&I, POSI, IMI and cyber policies); monitoring complex commercial disputes; handling arbitrations and optionally managing cyber incident response.  The role also includes advising on subrogated recoveries. The successful candidate will work for a range of local insurers in the Asian market, London syndicates and other international insurers.

The Partner is seeking an experienced lawyer with a deep working knowledge of financial lines insurance issues who is able to work autonomously and proactively in managing matters and building client relationships. The role will be client facing and involve significant business development work. Given Singapore operates as a global business headquarters for numerous MNCs and a key financial hub in Asia, the work will necessarily be international in nature and the candidate must be able to engage in international business travel. The successful candidate will also be expected to mentor and train junior members within the team, conduct internal and external training seminars for staff and clients and regularly publish and present thought leadership pieces to a local and international audience. The candidate will ideally have experience advising clients on cross-jurisdictional claims and be expected to regularly engage and collaborate on client initiatives with colleagues in the APAC, EMEA and US regions.

This is a unique opportunity for bright and ambitious lawyers keen on working in a market leading and international team within a global law firm in a vibrant and increasingly vital international business centre. 

Team

Kennedys Singapore office was established in 2008 and in 2015 entered into a joint law venture (JLV) with local Singapore law firm, Legal Solutions to create Kennedys Legal Solutions. Kennedys Legal Solutions is the Singapore office of the international law firm Kennedys which has 45 offices around the world.

We pride ourselves on helping our clients navigate both business and legal challenges throughout the Asia Pacific region and across multiple practice areas, with a strong focus in both the commercial and insurance/reinsurance sector. We provide a seamless suite of services across both English and Singapore law and are closely connected with our offices in Hong Kong, Australia, UK and the Middle East, as well as partner firms across Asia.

Kennedys' financial lines team deal with all areas of financial lines and professional liability matters handling claims of all sizes and complexities and the role has become available due to an exciting time of growth. The successful candidate will report directly to the Partner and have the support of other lawyers in the team.

Clients

• Insurers and reinsurers
• Lloyds syndicates
• Global composites

Cases

• Advising insurers on complex coverage issues across PI, D&O, Crime/BBB, W&I, POSI, IMI and Cyber
• Monitoring litigation in various jurisdictions in Asia and abroad; prosecuting and defending arbitrations
• Managing subrogated recoveries

Required experience

• Minimum of 10 years' law firm experience, but we are open to applications from more experienced lawyers with the applicable experience and ambition*
• Qualified in a common law jurisdiction such as England & Wales / Australia (dual admission in Singapore is ideal)
• Insurance experience, ideally coverage, across financial lines and professional indemnity
• Ideally experience in cyber incident response
• International arbitration experience preferred
• Good relationships with clients, including insureds, insurance brokers and insurers in the APAC and/or London market
• Experience working in cross-jurisdictional disputes with other lawyers within the global network
• Strong business development capabilities and presentation skills and extensive experience in complex financial lines advice
• Demonstrated experience in mentoring and guiding junior lawyers

*Where a level of experience is indicated, this is a guideline only and represents the amount of time we would usually expect a candidate to accumulate the requisite level of experience. This does not preclude applications from candidates with more or less experience.

About Kennedys

Kennedys is a global law firm with expertise in dispute resolution and advisory services. With over 2,750 people worldwide across 48 offices in the UK, Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific and America we have some of the most respected legal minds in their field.

Our lawyers handle both contentious and non-contentious matters, and provide a range of specialist legal services, for many industry sectors but we have particular expertise in litigation and dispute resolution, especially in defending insurance and liability claims.

We're a fresh-thinking firm, and we're not afraid to bring challenging new perspectives to the table way beyond the traditional realm of legal services. We empower our clients with a diverse range of ideas, tools and technology to make their lives easier, as well as delivering exceptional results, every time.

What do we have to offer?

We welcome high-performing lawyers, business services professionals, secretaries, graduates and apprentices to join our rapidly expanding global firm. Whatever your role at Kennedys, you'll be involved in exciting and stimulating work, where your input will make a difference.

Our culture and values form a big part of who we are and we take them seriously. We make a difference by being approachable, straightforward, supportive and distinctive. Our values are at the core of who we are and what make us a great firm to work with and for.

The Firm recognises the value of investing in our people's development and believes our culture and values contribute to the quality of our work and of our client relationships. With a culture of on-the-job and experiential learning, peer to peer learning, mentoring, resources and tools that enable you to drive your career, we can support your development in your current and future roles.  A variety of other opportunities are available including secondments to clients and our global offices.

We strive to celebrate diversity, empower our people and ensure everyone can bring their authentic selves to work.  We've created a culture based on client service, professional excellence, hard work and trust, where diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) is a key priority.  We recognise that many of our people want to work for an employer that is aligned to their values, which is why we are building an inclusive culture, decarbonising our operations and supporting our people to thrive at work.  Our people are the key to driving this change and helping us to make a difference to our clients, our people and the communities in which we live and work.

Kennedys is an equal opportunities employer and is committed to ensuring our recruitment processes are as inclusive as possible. We expect all employees to be aware of and comply with all relevant policies and procedures within their jurisdiction, including those relating to Information Security, Data Protection and Quality Management, refer any breach promptly to Risk & Compliance and to complete all mandatory training when requested.