Clifford Chance LLP Hiring for Commercial Advisor Job at Dubai Full Time

Summary: Clifford Chance is one of the world’s leading law firms, helping clients achieve their goals by combining the highest global standards with local expertise. The firm has unrivalled scale and depth of legal resources across the three key markets of the Americas, Asia and Europe and focuses on the core areas of commercial activity: capital markets; corporate and M&A; finance and banking; real estate; tax; pensions and employment; litigation and dispute resolution. Clifford Chance has 33 offices in 23 countries and 3,300 legal advisers.

Clifford Chance Dubai is a full service office which is completely integrated with, and supported by, our global network. We advise clients on major transactions in the Middle East and beyond.

We have one of the leading banking and project finance groups in the region and can offer our lawyers the chance to develop their careers through advising on the most significant finance transactions in the region, including banking, project finance, Islamic finance, restructuring and asset finance.

Job overview: The commercial Advisor roll is required to support the commercial services finance function for the Middle East, incorporating pricing, billing and collection. The position reports to the Working Capital & Pricing Manager.

Key Responsibilities:

• Act as a first point of contact and trusted advisor for Partners and matter teams on queries relating to working capital, pricing and revenue.
• You will meet with partners and other lawyers on a regular basis to discuss billing and collection issues, review WIP and ensure compliance with client specific billing requirements.
• Work collaboratively with the Operational O2C team in Delhi for billing and collection activities performed on behalf of the ME Region and act as the primary point of contact between Partners and the Operational O2C team.
• You will be involved in supporting the preparation of bills. These may be highly complex with time breakdowns, and in differing formats in accordance with client billing arrangements.
• You will liaise closely with and progress-chase Partners/lawyers to ensure early return of approved billing guides with narratives provided by lawyers to ensure billing targets are met.
• You will be responsible for the prompt resolution of billing queries, estimates, time transfers, creating Excel reports on ad hoc basis and assist partners with pricing analysis.
• Responsible for matter level escalation to Head of Finance to enable prompt resolution of issues
• Provide updates to prepare/support regular cash flow forecasting
• Ensure compliance with internal policies on working capital management such as IFRS 15 and write-off procedures
• Steer the monthly collection focus with the support of the credit control manager and the Delhi collection team, including calling and writing to clients directly and taking follow up actions
• You will take part in monthly Finance partners’ meetings where you will provide updates on the working capital position and agree any remedial action required.
• You will correspond with and chase overseas offices and counsel to obtain details of costs.
• You will have responsibility for understanding the receipting of funds and compliance with Solicitors Accounts Rules.

Client relationship management:

• You will liaise directly with clients and develop relationships with stakeholders and primary client contacts in key client organisations to facilitate the billing and collection process.
• Attending internal and external client meetings to discuss lock-up performance, key drivers or address any client concerns against KPIs
• Provide local Partners with a point of contact to discuss and coordinate finance related operational issues
• Ensure changes to client O2C processes and ways of working are communicated to the relevant fee-earner and business professional teams, clearly explaining the impact of those changes
• Attend client relationship meetings and establish regular dialogue with client operation teams where required

Pricing and profitability:

• You will be involved in client and matter profitability analysis, and in large client relationship reviews, working closely with the partners and with the Business Development team.
• You will increasingly be involved at the start of matters in the review of engagement letters to ensure billing is set-up correctly at the start in terms of pricing and efficient billing logistics.
• Monitor WIP and Debt balances against agreed matter budgets including out-of-scope work and pro-actively discuss risks and issues with Partners, including the impact on revenue and profitability as a result of provisions and potential write-offs
• Continually assess and understand where issues are and how they can be addressed, providing and implementing pragmatic solutions to ensure robust working capital management
• You will take part in the annual audit process assisting the Head of Finance, Middle East in the provision of information to the auditors for both management and statutory/tax audits.
• You will take part in the provision of information during the internal audit process.
• You will provide training and guidance to secretaries and new starters on billing procedures, time recording and other working capital and pricing matters.

Project support and best practice implementation:

• You will look for opportunities to improve billing and collection processes and implement best practice.
• Share success, promote and live the One Finance vision and values
• Work collaboratively with other commercial advisors in the CC network to drive working capital best practice and optimization – make it more specific.
• Actively participate in projects and provide input to defining best practice globally.