Legal Services in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories, where we go above and beyond for our residents – in all sorts of pioneering ways. Our work has the ability to have profound impact on residents’ lives. By being smart and courageous with the council’s finances means we can achieve more for our residents.

Take the Carrick Yard housing development in Luton Street. When a big international building firm couldn’t find a sales partner, we stepped in to create a joint venture partnership and underwrite any unsold units to protect our investment. Then when we felt a big banking partner would be overcharging the venture for financing the development, we decided to finance it ourselves. The result? 171 homes are now under construction, leading the redevelopment of the Church Street area, whilst the council is projecting a potential return on investment of almost 14% – far in excess of anything that can be achieved on cash deposits in current market conditions.

And why does this success matter? Because it allows us to invest even more in public services that are the lifeblood of our communities. 

The Role:

As a Solicitor in our customer-focused Commercial Property team, you can make your own powerful contribution to the residents of Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea. Putting residents’ needs and social value at the heart of our work, our friendly and experienced in-house legal team deliver high quality advice for all sorts of situations.

As such, this is a fantastic opportunity to get to grips with the Constitutions of both councils as you deliver advice on a wide range of commercial property-related matters including development and regeneration matters. Working quickly to come up with innovative solutions to complex routine and non-routine legal challenges, you will work with a wide range of client directorates and legal colleagues. This means that there will be plenty of scope to start with a routine caseload, before building up to more complex and technical advice, so if you’ve got the ambition to develop your expertise in a collaborative team.

With an overarching aim of helping both councils achieve their desired outcomes, we celebrate a busy yet dynamic environment in which we constantly ask ourselves how we can make things happen. Rather than declining a service, we prioritise challenges and find solutions. Join us, and you will use your knowledge of the law around buying and selling land and leases in the local authority sector to determine how commercial property leases will work from both a landlord and a tenant’s perspective. Getting to know your clients, you will explore their objectives and underpin their decision-making processes with clear legal advice, advising them on risk and helping them secure the best outcomes. This will often be done at speed, as they may need you to translate complex legal issues so that they can take decisions and give instructions quickly – so if you are looking for a constantly evolving challenge in which no two days will ever be the same.

About You:

We champion a truly inclusive and supportive workplace in which colleagues are encouraged to be true to themselves. With more than 30 languages spoken in our team, and everyone being happy to jump into each other’s projects to help out whenever they’re needed, we promote a friendly workplace that’s quite unique. Furthermore, many of our colleagues take the opportunity to volunteer and support charity work, so there is a real sense of community here – so you will excel with us if you are a team-player with a collaborative mindset.

Our work is very much deadline orientated, so you will need to have exceptional time-management and prioritising skills, with the ability to think strategically when under pressure. It goes without saying that you will be a Qualified Solicitor, Barrister, CLIEX Fellow or Associate, and you will be passionate about providing advice relating to the urban environment – this will ideally be underpinned by experience in commercial property, residential property or procurement and planning law.

Comfortable negotiating advantageous terms on behalf of both Councils, you will be capable of dealing with stakeholders at all levels, including Government Departments and other Local Authorities. As such, you will have fantastic verbal and written communication skills, you will be keen to mentor less experienced colleagues, and learn from those who are more knowledgeable. Specifically, you will be able to communicate legal issues effectively, so you will have a good knowledge of a wide range of commercial property challenges including lease renewals, security of tenure, easements, restrictive covenants, charging of assets and other transactional property-related issues. You will also have an understanding of a range of other areas such as the acquisition and disposal of commercial property with the capacity to draft commercial leases and asset management documents. 

What We Offer:

Westminster is an amazing place. We are home to more than 200,000 residents from all backgrounds, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people work in Westminster. Westminster City Council’s strategy is to work towards a Fairer Westminster. A Fairer Westminster is one in which our communities are at the heart of our decision-making and help to determine the city’s future. By working directly with our communities and other partners, we can build a more inclusive city that celebrates our diverse communities, and where residents, workers and visitors from all backgrounds will feel welcome and safe.

At Westminster City Council, we pride ourselves on being an inclusive workplace and employer of choice. We encourage and welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that, at all levels, represents the communities we serve. We champion equality, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued, has a sense of belonging and is empowered to be their best, that is the Westminster Way.

As a forward-thinking Council we appreciate that people work in different ways, therefore our staff benefit from working a range of flexible working patterns as well as Agile working.

The Council is a Disability Confident Employer. If you have declared a disability in your application, we guarantee an interview if you meet the essential criteria of the job. If you are invited for interview, you will be asked if you need any reasonable adjustments in order to attend, and we will make these wherever possible.