Principal Lawyer
Job Title: Principal Lawyer - Child Litigation Unit
Location: County Hall, Hertford
Salary Range: £55,916 p/a + £3,033 market enhancement with the opportunity to progress to a maximum of £62,589 p/a + £3,034 market enhancement
Hours: 37 per week
Contract: Permanent
Diversity: We are an inclusive employer and value a diverse workforce
This is an exciting opportunity to join a large, well resourced and regarded Legal Services team, providing high quality legal services to a Children’s Services department deemed outstanding by Ofsted.
Jointly leading the Child Litigation Unit with two other Principal Lawyers, you will have responsibility for management of a team of lawyers and paralegals/ trainees. The team deals with all child protection and adoption litigation on behalf of the Local Authority, as well as supporting the client department with conduct of pre-proceedings PLO matters and ad-hoc advice on any matters relating to children.
This role is instrumental to ensuring that the service provided to Children’s Services is of a consistently high quality, and you will be client facing and regularly meet with key clients and external partners to discuss service delivery. You will supervise and where necessary develop the team to provide this service.
Sitting on the Legal Services Management team you will with the support of the Director and Assistant Chief Legal Officer for Litigation, be responsible for budget monitoring, capacity and resourcing within the team. Alongside these management responsibilities you will also hold or oversee a reduced but active case load of child litigation matters.
No two days will be the same in this role due to the variety of matters dealt with by the team.
There is an opportunity to shape the way legal services are delivered and liaise with colleagues in private practice, CAFCASS, the Judiciary and other external partners to ensure efficiency.
You will need to demonstrate the ability to provide accurate, comprehensive and timely legal advice whilst also managing the team and your own caseload and developing and maintaining effective client relationships.
For this role you will need to have a recognised legal qualification as a Solicitor, Barrister or Chartered Legal Executive with significant post qualification experience in public child protection law, as well as experience of people and business management.
The successful candidate will need to demonstrate how they would balance managing a large team of people with the competing legal case work and service delivery pressures of the role.
This role offers an opportunity to work in a dynamic and supportive legal team, advising an innovative and effective client team, with exposure to an interesting and challenging workload.
Closing Date: Monday 29th May 2023
Interview Date: TBC
For an informal discussion and more information please contact: Helen Nicol - Assistant Chief Legal Officer on 01992 555756 or at helen.nicol@hertfordshire.gov.uk