Litigation Lawyer
Organisation: London Borough of Waltham Forest
Grade: PO3 - PO5
Salary: £42,840 - £52,116
Contract Type: Full-time Permanent
Working hours per week: 36
Application Deadline: 26th July 2024
Proposed Interview Date(s): Week commencing 29th July 2024
Reference:1297
About Us:
Bursting with culture, energy, and opportunity, the London Borough of Waltham Forest is a fantastic and exciting place to work.
We are a highly ambitious borough. Driven by culture and the innate creativity of our residents, we have developed new and innovative ways to build our communities. Our Council is relentlessly resident-focused, insight-led, digitally driven and commercially minded; a Council focused on meeting the needs of our existing and future residents.
London Borough of Waltham Forest is one of the Mayor of London's Good Work Standard employers. This accreditation is a proof of our commitment to creating a healthy, fair and inclusive workplace. This includes fair pay and conditions, workplace well-being, skills and progression and diversity and recruitment.
About the role:
Waltham Forest Legal Services is a high performing in house legal service which plays an essential part in the achievement of the priorities and objectives of Waltham Forest. Our objective is to provide high quality and efficient professional services that meet our clients' expectations and provides a business and solution focused approach. The Service has been accredited to Lexcel since 2005.
We are looking for a Senior Litigation and Litigation Lawyer to join our Litigation and Public Law Team. Whilst working to a generic job description we are looking for a lawyer who has a significant experience and strength in education, including Special Educational Needs (SEN) and litigation in the First Tier Tribunal. You will be responsible for a challenging and varied caseload of SEN tribunals, it would be desirable to have the ability to support the team in employment cases, including advice work and defending the Council's employment tribunal cases. You will be line managed by a Principal Lawyer and supported by paralegals and our trainee solicitors in the team.
The ideal candidates must be a qualified solicitor, or barrister with post qualification experience in education and SEN work, including experience of appeals in the First Tier Tribunal. You must be be willing and able to undertake advocacy in courts and tribunals.
>> Click here to download the Role Profile <<
Key Responsibilities:
Please refer to role profile for key responsibilities.
Qualifications and Requirements:
- Practising Solicitor or Barrister or FILEX with advocacy rights who currently has or who is immediately able to obtain a practising certificate
Terms and conditions:
The below terms and conditions apply to this role:
- Satisfactory employment references and CIFAS identity checks;
- Satisfactory declaration of interest;
- Satisfactory DBS check;
- Continued professional body registration with the appropriate regulatory authority, either the Bar Council or SRA.
As a public authority, we must ensure that members of staff in public-facing roles are able to speak fluent English. This means that they must have a command of spoken English, with confidence and accuracy, sufficient for the effective performance of their role. This requirement does not refer to any particular English language qualifications, regional or international accents, dialects, speech impediments or the tone of conversations. It does not require staff to speak only in English.
How to Apply:
Interested candidates are invited to submit their applications online by pressing the 'Apply' button below. This includes a supporting statement that outlines to us how your skills and experience make you a good candidate for this vacancy.
We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.
Equal Opportunity Employer:
Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both, service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is proud of its rich mix of communities and as the largest employer in the area, it works hard to respond to the changing needs of its population. We use our statutory duties on race, gender and disability equality and best practice in respect of age, faith and sexual orientation to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Council is committed to meeting its 4 equality objectives: - Promoting equality of opportunity - Opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage - Ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels. - Providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent Services to all. Respecting Diversity is a core Council value.
To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy.
We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below or feel free to discuss this during your interview.
For more information on the benefits of working for the Council, please visit https://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/jobs-and-training/find-jobs-and-other-opportunities/working-us.
Contact Information:
If you have any questions about this vacancy or the application process, please contact Samia Alrahi, Principal Lawyer via email at samia.alrahi@walthamforest.gov.uk.
If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post, please contact our Recruitment Team via email at recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk.
The Council's preference is for online application. However, if you have a disability and are unable to complete an online application, please email recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk so we can arrange an alternative application method.
Click here for further information on the Human Resources recruitment privacy notice.