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Business Services Professionals

How we work

One of our strengths is knowing how to pull together the right team.

To support our lawyers in providing the very best, industry focused legal services, we rely on a variety of specialist business services professionals to advise, guide and support the work we provide for our clients. 

Our senior management team, which includes a number of non-lawyer professionals, is supported by experts in all the usual business support disciplines:

  • Communications
  • CSR
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • Facilities & Procurement
  • Finance
  • Human Resources
  • Business Change, Transformation & Innovation
  • IT
  • Knowledge & Information Services 
  • Learning & Development
  • Marketing & Business Development
  • Risk Management

Alongside these, we also have a team of specialist professional support lawyersparalegals and, by no means least, our secretarial team, who are all equally integral to our success.

Some of our support functions are outsourced, but excluding those we have over 400 people working in our business support departments.

Like our lawyers, many of our specialists belong to a department for organisational purposes, but are dedicated to specific practice groups or sector groups. Working closely with the legal teams, often our specialists, such as HR, Finance and Marketing experts, sit alongside the groups they support. 

We work collaboratively across our international network. This not only means that our clients receive an integrated, seamless service despite cross-jurisdictional complications, but also that we can offer our people exciting opportunities to work internationally and to undertake overseas transfers and secondments, which are not just limited to lawyers.

Career development

Your career path

At CMS we support our people to achieve their full potential and to progress in their roles and develop their careers as quickly as possible. We provide opportunities for promotion and for you to explore roles or assignments in other business services as they arise.

CMS has provided invaluable support to me over the years, encouraging me to explore a career in Marketing and sponsoring me to gain the required qualifications from when I first joined the firm as a legal secretary - 25 years ago! My marketing career began as a Marketing Assistant and I’m now Head of Marketing Operations. I still face new and exciting challenges, different people to work with, and fresh initiatives that keep the role varied and interesting.
Nicky Jeffery, Head of Marketing Operations
 Learning & Development

We think our approach to Learning & Development is different:

  • We will work with you to devise a personal development plan tailored to your needs and ambitions.
  • Our personalised approach also extends to providing one to one coaching and mentoring to springboard performance.
  • We run dedicated training programmes for every level of employee – from junior staff to senior partners. If you change roles or assignments, you can be sure you’ll receive all the necessary training and development support.
  • Our dedicated IT support team are on hand to help with any aspect of IT training, from software courses to technical queries, to how to make the most of our intranet.

We offer all kinds of training and development to support you in the specifics of your role at every stage of your career.

If you wish to gain a professional qualification, we provide a study assistance programme, paying for all course fees and allowing you time off to study and to take exams.

Secretarial

All our secretaries are offered a comprehensive programme of training that covers:

  • Secretarial business skills
  • IT skills
  • Legal skills
  • Financial skills

Additional one-off courses are available, depending on your individual learning and development needs.

We also offer a study assistance programme if you wish to study for your ILEX qualification or take the advanced Microsoft Office Specialist programme.

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