About Lester Aldridge
Lester Aldridge is a full-service UK law firm with a strong reputation across key sectors including; healthcare, shipping, banks & other lenders, housebuilders, ports & harbours, charities, AI and private clients. We are committed to delivering legal advice that creates commercial or personal opportunity for our clients and do that by building long-term client relationships.
We are at an exciting stage in our development as a firm and also to our approach to business development so this a unique opportunity to help shape that for a firm with bold and ambitious plans. Our first Business Development & Marketing Director joined in 2025 and is part of the Senior Leadership Team who have been working on plans for our new strategy.
Supporting the partners and fee-earners with BD to win and retain high-quality clients across our target markets is key to those plans. This role would also work alongside the BD & Marketing Director to develop the infrastructure to support the new BD approach.
Role Overview
We are looking for a BD & Proposals Manager to work closely with partners and fee-earners as well as the BD & Marketing Director and Marketing colleagues to identify and create BD opportunities and develop compelling, client-focused proposals that demonstrate LA’s proposition.
This is a high-impact role with visibility across the firm, supporting strategic growth in our priority sectors.
Key Responsibilities
Bid & Pitch Management
- Produce compelling, tailored proposals (including credentials and tenders) that demonstrate Lester Aldridge’s proposition in their approach. These could be from any part of the firm’s full service offering (so offers a lot of variety).However, the Marketing & BD strategy will focus on target sectors and hence on collaboration across the firm in order to address clients’ specific requirements.
- Manage multiple concurrent submissions, ensuring high-quality outputs to deadline.
- Support go/no-go decisions aligned to firm strategy and sector priorities.
- Develop and maintain a high-quality library of proposal-ready credentials, case studies, and CVs.
Sector Initiatives
- Help develop the firm’s sector BD strategy eg
- Track sector issues for impact on clients and high value targets
- Identify opportunities to support clients and targets by drawing on expertise across the firm.
Stakeholder Engagement
- Partner closely with Partners and fee-earners across all parts of the full service firm.
- Challenge and shape bid strategy to improve win rates for high quality targets
- Support and coach fee earners in best-practice pitching and proposal development
- Facilitate review sessions and capture lessons learned from wins/losses
- Collaborate with Marketing on campaigns to attract targets through:
- Events (seminars, webinars) including identification of invitees and attendance.
- Content
Pipeline Management
- Ensuring new cold enquiries are responded to quickly by fee-earners.
- Help devise new processes (within current and emerging data infrastructure) for pipeline management at a firm, sector, team and individual level
- Ultimately, pipeline reporting.
Firm Initiatives
There may be new firm initiatives that will require support and input from this role eg
- Key client programme
- Alumni programme
- Pricing strategy
- CRM implementation
Key Skills & Experience
Essential
- Proven experience managing proposals in a law firm or professional services environment
- Ability to develop strong relationships with partners and fee-earners and be seen as a trusted adviser with credibility.
- Strong writing and editing skills, with the ability to produce high-quality, client-ready content
- Excellent project management skills and ability to manage competing deadlines
- Commercial awareness and understanding of client decision-making
Desirable
- Using tools such as LinkedIn and AI in research
- Advanced PowerPoint skills for proposal production
- Experience of CRM systems/pipeline reporting tools
- Experience working within one or more of Lester Aldridge’s key sectors (e.g. healthcare, shipping, housebuilders, private wealth)
Key Competencies
- Strong communication and influencing skills
- Attention to detail and quality focus
- Collaborative and proactive approach
- Resilience and ability to work under pressure
- Strategic mindset with a focus on results
Reporting Line
- Reports to: Business Development & Marketing Director
Why Join Lester Aldridge?
- Opportunity to play a key role in the firm’s exciting growth strategy
- Exposure to a broad range of sectors and legal services
- Collaborative and supportive culture
- Flexible/hybrid working approach
- Clear opportunity to shape and enhance the firm’s proposal capability
