West Sussex County Council are looking for a legal assistant to join their experienced and motivated team. As part of the role, you will have the opportunity to undertake an appropriate qualification process to qualify as a legal executive or solicitor (with both financial assistance towards the CILEX/CPQ/SQE or any other equivalent legal qualification, fees considered and study leave).

Working Pattern: Full-time, 37 hours per week. Flexible working considered.

Location: Your office base will be County Hall, Chichester. This is a hybrid/remote working role with any working from home arrangements being at the discretion and agreement with your manager.

Interview Date: Week commencing 17 March 2025

As a Legal Assistant you will be working in the Childcare Team supporting and co working with a Childcare Lawyer who has case conduct of Care Proceedings, Public Law Outline and other Public Law cases. Your role will impact on the future wellbeing and circumstances of individual children and families in West Sussex. In this position you will play a key role in enabling Children Services of ensuring the safety and security of children across West Sussex.

The successful candidate will provide support to the team, demonstrate initiative and an ability to prioritise work to meet both internal and external deadlines. You will need to achieve and maintain good working relationships with clients, colleagues, Local Authority employees and external stakeholders.

Prior relevant legal experience of working in a Childcare team is required and a legal qualification preferable.

You will become part of our 40 strong Child Care legal team. You will work in an accommodating and dynamic environment supported by a senior management team including 1 Principal Solicitor and 4 Senior Solicitors. Legal assistants can achieve their full potential as we strive for a healthy work-life balance and ensure you are rewarded for the work you do. This is an excellent opportunity for an ambitious and developing legal assistant/legal executive to come on board and benefit from the team’s wide-ranging expertise.

Experience and skills

Key Skills:

• Ability to communicate effectively both verbally and in writing with a diverse range of colleagues, clients and external Third Parties e.g. The Judiciary, Court staff, external Solicitors, Barrister’s Chambers and experts. To have confident presentational skills.
• Analytical and judgemental skills to interpret complex information in order to effectively deal with arranging court cases and meetings, complete legal research tasks, and to handle case-related calls from clients, courts and external lawyers.
• To be a team player with an approachable, adaptable and positive attitude towards work with a willingness to provide cover in colleagues’ absence and to pick up work outside of own specialism if necessary.
• Ability to work under pressure, meet tight deadlines, adapt to change and to manage competing priorities.
• Ability to plan and prioritise work effectively to meet own objectives and those of the team.
• Ability to draft less complex legal documents, e.g. court applications, internal memos, Post Court documentation, drafting reports.
• Good client care skills and a commitment to client focus and continuing service development.

Qualifications and/or experience:

• 3 A Level qualifications or equivalent including GSCE English and Maths (minimum grade C/4) experience demonstrating that level of numeracy and literacy.
• Already working towards a SQE or CILEX qualification or be willing towards the qualification.
• Experience of working in an office environment setting or equivalent legal experience.
• Experience of handling a varied workload, producing high quality and accurate documents, and working effectively as a member of a team.
• Good working knowledge of IT systems / procedures, including Microsoft Office applications. Computer literate with experience in using Microsoft Office and Excel, legal research tools/databases and bespoke software including case management systems.
• Experience of assisting with managing of a case load comprising mainly of both Public and Private Law matters or equivalent experience managing priorities and tasks for at least 12 months. 

Working for us

As well as adding real value to our service users and our communities, as an employer we recognise our employees are central in being able to achieve this. To recognise this we want to help support your development and provide a great place to work ensuring you can fulfil your full potential, achieve a healthy work-life balance and are rewarded for the work you do. Upon joining us you will have access to a range of benefits including:

• an excellent local government pension scheme
• generous holiday entitlement of 25 - 27 days (plus opportunity to buy additional leave)
• a range of flexible working options, depending on your job role
• a strong supportive management team
• the possibility of up to 13 flexi days a year
• maternity, paternity, dependency and adoption leave (criteria to be met)
• volunteering opportunities
• training and development opportunities, including coaching and mentoring
• a range of discounts giving our staff access to hundreds of offers; groceries, travel, cinema tickets, days out, leisure activities, high street retailers and the opportunity to save over £1,000 a year through our West Sussex Choices benefits platform.
• health and wellbeing benefits including access to our Employee Assistance Programme, Mental Health First Aiders and Voluntary Health Cash Plans

Further information

The reference number for this role is CRS00910.

For an informal conversation or for further information regarding the role, please contact Katie Davenport (Senior Solicitor) at Katie.Davenport@westsussex.gov.uk. For issues or queries regarding your application please contact hrrecruitment@westsussex.gov.uk.

To apply, please follow the links below to upload your CV and Cover Letter. In your cover letter please outline your motivations for applying and explaining the skills and experience you can bring to the role (please refer to the key skills) ensuring that any gaps in employment are covered in your CV. Please ensure you have saved the job description attached to the main advert on our website as, once the job has closed, you may not have the opportunity to download again.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. This post is subject to 3 years referencing and a health check.

Equity, inclusion and accessibility is very important to West Sussex County Council. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, as this helps us build a diverse and talented workforce, that reflects the communities we serve. We ensure our approach to recruitment is flexible and supportive to enable all applicants to be at their best and to ensure they have the best possible chance of success.

Closing date: 9 March 2025

For further information or to apply, please click on the 'Enquire/Apply' button below.