Senior Professional Development Specialist

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett • New York, NY

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Professional Development Specialist supports the professional staffing and development of associates and counsel within the Energy & Infrastructure practice. This role includes managing staffing, talent engagement initiatives, and mentoring. The Specialist acts as a key resource for advancing attorney staffing coordination, development initiatives, mentoring programs, talent engagement efforts, and performance management processes, ensuring a positive and consistent attorney experience. The role reports primarily to the Manager, Legal Talent, with a secondary reporting line to the Firm’s Director, Legal Training and Development. It serves as a trusted point of contact for attorneys, escalating complex talent-related matters as needed.

Requirements

• 4 to 5 years of relevant experience, including prior experience in a law firm and/or staffing experience.
• Strong oral and written communication skills.
• Superior judgment and ability to deal discreetly with confidential information.
• Ability to interact well and build professional relationships with a collaborative approach.
• Ability to self-direct, manage multiple priorities, analyze needs, and implement solutions.
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Experience with Word, Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Experience with other legal personnel and recruiting applications.
• Must be flexible to adjust hours to meet departmental needs.
• Must display professionalism and quality service to internal members/departments, external clients, and vendors.

Nice To Haves

• Legal AI familiarity preferred.

Responsibilities

• Staffing: Partner with staffing partners and Professional Development Managers to monitor, assess, and maintain equitable attorney utilization. Evaluate staffing requests and recommend resource allocation, matching needs with attorney resources based on availability, experience, skills, utilization, and desired exposure. Build rapport with mid-senior associates through meetings. Provide opportunities for varied matter experience while balancing growth with client needs. Maintain consistency of experiences and equitable distribution of assignments. Maintain and analyze staffing databases, utilization reports, and metrics. Monitor associate availability and utilization trends, preparing reports and recommendations. Coordinate cross-office staffing, secondments, and other staffing initiatives.
• Onboarding: Coordinate and facilitate staffing introductions, welcome meetings, lunches, internal communications, integration, and onboarding activities for new associates, counsel, and lateral hires. Update applicable group lists and onboarding resources.
• Managing Absence Time: Monitor and track absence time and maintain vacation calendars. Coordinate necessary matter team coverage during attorney absences. Track vacation carryover.
• Facilitating Associate Life/Engagement: Develop trusted professional relationships with staff attorneys, associates, and counsel through regular check-ins to understand professional experiences, development objectives, availability, engagement, and well-being. Identify engagement, retention, staffing, or professional development opportunities or concerns and recommend actions, escalating to Legal Talent management when necessary. Collaborate with the Director of Practice Management to plan and facilitate team-building events. Assist in monitoring and maintaining associate compliance with firm and professional policies (e.g., CLE, bar exam).
• Legal Talent Support: Ensure thorough evaluations and developmental objectives for each associate/counsel. Assist with verbal intake of feedback from partners. Update VI feedback tracking system. Participate in talent review discussions and assist in preparing materials, reports, and analyses related to attorney performance and development. Coordinate with other professional service team members to further practice group initiatives. Analyze and maintain accurate data and reporting within staffing and talent management systems. Work on ad hoc projects as needed.

Benefits

• The Firm prohibits discrimination or harassment based upon race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, citizenship status, disability, marital or partnership status, sexual orientation, veteran’s status or any other legally protected status.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior