Salary: £47,694 - £52,155 per annum (pro-rata for part-time)  

Working Hours: 22.2 Hours per week

Work Location: County Hall, Glenfield, Leicestershire LE3 8RA

Worker Category: Hybrid Worker

Working for Leicestershire County Council as a Solicitor
•    Team working is very important to us and we expect our lawyers to work with colleagues in a positive and supportive way that promotes learning and development.  
•    Professional culture of proactive advice,
•    High quality supervision and support from team and management
•    Work life/ balance
•    Flexible hybrid ways of working policies and IT systems supporting effective remote/home working
•    Job satisfaction – delivering training supporting colleagues
•    Interesting range of contentious and non-contentious work on behalf of the County Council and organisations with which it can trade.

Also an attractive benefits package including:
•    Leave entitlement of up to 32 days depending on grade and length of service plus public holidays and leave buy back scheme,
•    Generous local government pension scheme,
•    Free on-site parking, restaurant and food outlet,
•    Employee benefits and discount scheme.
•    Employee-friendly policies including carer support and comprehensive wellbeing support services. The council is a ‘Mindful Employer’ and committed to the well- being of its staff and workplace equality initiatives.
•    Career development support: the council recognises the value of mentoring, training and development. All managers in legal services are experienced and highly regarded legal practitioners both within the council and externally.
What’s not to like?!  We look forward to receiving your application.

About the Role
You will become a part- time employment solicitor dealing with a broad range of contentious and non-contentious work on behalf of the County Council and organisations with which it can trade.

You will be expected to provide timely, accurate legal advice to council officers, including qualified HR practitioners, elected members, and partner organisations including academies and schools as appropriate.

The post involves dealing with a range of employment matters including contractual disputes, discrimination claims, wrongful termination allegations,  wage disputes, severance agreements capability & disciplinary issues.  It routinely involves representing the Council at internal hearings as well as external tribunals.
In addition to contentious work, you are required to provide general employment advice and support to client departments as well as assisting with the preparation of documents such as employment contracts (variations thereof), settlement agreements and policy documents.

The post holder will respect the confidential nature of the work

About You
To apply for this post, you must:

•    Admitted as a solicitor/ barrister or Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives
•    must be commercially focused and be competent in handling a wide range of often complex employment law matters that face a large public sector employer.
•    have excellent written and oral skills,
•    be competent with drafting and negotiation,
•    have up to date knowledge of employment law to manage a caseload of matters relating to employment law, including unfair dismissal, redundancy, discrimination, TUPE, and contractual matters generally
•    undertake some advocacy in employment tribunals
•    be familiar with legal based IT applications
•    Demonstrate evidence of providing quality legal advice and assistance
•    Be aware Information law (e.g. Data Protection issues)
•    Be able to communicate effectively orally and in writing
•    Be reliable and takes responsibility for organising own work to achieve objectives in order of priority and to deadlines
•    To think and act commercially and strategically in the provision of legal services and be willing to embrace change and new opportunities/challenges.
•    Be able to work accurately under pressure with minimum supervision
•    rapidly establish good working relationships of trust and confidence with professional clients by providing customer focused solutions.  
•    Be able to operate effectively individually and as part of a team
•    Have of a current driving licence and access to a vehicle.

You must also have an understanding of, and commitment to, equal opportunities, and the ability to apply this to all situations.

In addition, we also expect you to share our commitment to our values and will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the selection process.

Interested in Flexible Working?
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.

This may include requests for term-time working, part-time hours, compressed hours, flexible start and finish times, home/remote working, etc.

Every role within the Council has a defined working style which determines where they can work. The worker category applicable to this post is detailed in the above advert. You can find out more about our worker categories in the Our Working Styles page on our career site.

For more information or an informal discussion, please contact:
Oonagh O'Neill (Team Leader)
Telephone: 0116 305 6012
Email: Oonagh.o’neill@leics.gov.uk
 
How to Apply
Leicestershire County Council is an inclusive organisation which is on a journey to embed and celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion at every level. We warmly welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, as having a diverse workforce with different perspectives and ideas is fundamental to our values and enriches the services we offer our communities.

We particularly welcome applicants from Ethnically Diverse and LGBTQ+ communities and people with disabilities to create a balanced workforce and one that reflects the communities we serve. Applicants with a disability who meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above will be offered an interview under the Disability Confident Employer Scheme.

To apply for this job, please click on the 'Enquire/Apply' button below. You will need to upload a supporting statement as part of your application which explains how you meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above. For more information, see the How to Apply section on our career site.

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.

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post, please contact our Employee Service Centre: https://emss.freshdesk.com/support/home.
By applying for this post, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.

About Leicestershire County Council
Leicestershire County Council is a Stonewall Top 100, Disability Confident, Menopause Friendly, Mindful Employer, Fostering Friendly, Forces Friendly, and Cycle Friendly organisation. In August 2021, we also signed up to the Race at Work Charter. We are strongly committed to promoting equality and opportunity, championing employee wellbeing and investing in staff training and development.

Our aim is to work with communities and partners to deliver public services that make Leicestershire the best possible place to live and work for everyone. Our employees play a key role in supporting this goal and helping us deliver the vital services we provide to the people of Leicestershire.

For further information on what it’s like to work for us and the benefits we offer, please refer to the following:
Our Recruitment Process
Our Organisational Values
Our Employee Benefits
Working for Us

Closing Date: 17 January 2025

Interview Date(s): TBC