Immigration Litigation Barrister - #2100080

GOVERNMENT LEGAL DEPARTMENT

Knowledge Development Lawyer, Immigration Litigation

Location: Bristol, Croydon, Leeds, London, Manchester

Contract: Permanent

Salary: £61,124 National, £63,189 Croydon/London

Much more than law

The Government Legal Department (GLD) is the largest provider of legal services across government, working with all the main Whitehall departments. From energy to security, and from roads and rivers to health and human rights, our work touches on most aspects of public life. Developing and drafting legislation, helping to secure economic and trade relationships, providing legal advice on policies and ensuring value from contracts, our work is as varied as it is stimulating.

The Litigation Directorate sits at the heart of GLD’s work. And it reflects the complexity and importance of litigation across government. As the largest unit within GLD, our lawyers conduct public and private law litigation on behalf of departments and public bodies, often in high-profile cases involving issues of constitutional importance. Working across a broad range of matters, from inquests and public inquiries to immigration and public law challenges, the Directorate delivers expert representation for clients across government every day. The Home Office and Immigration Division (HOID) plays a key role in this work, handling public law litigation for the Home Office and a range of other departments and public bodies.

The Immigration Judicial Review Teams sit within the HOID, representing the Home Office in judicial review challenges to its immigration decisions. The work covers a wide range of high-profile areas, from asylum, deportation and leave to remain, to human trafficking, British nationality and passport-related decisions.

Your role

In this role, you’ll be expected to facilitate and influence how our lawyers do their best work while also fostering a culture of knowledge sharing and learning. You’ll keep an eye on important developments in law and practice, turn them into useful updates and resources, and make sure knowledge is easy for lawyers to find and share. You’ll also support lawyer onboarding, help capture insight when colleagues move on, and work with others to create and maintain practical tools such as lead lawyer notes, checklists, know-how, standard documents and precedents. At the same time, you’ll also:

• Organise and deliver legal training, both online and in person, including induction sessions and guidance
• Work with legal training groups, L&D specialists, panel law firms and clients to design training that meets real needs
• Promote the training available and help lawyers access the right development at the right time
• Support lawyer research by signposting useful resources, arranging training and carrying out research on specific issues
• Help clients stay legally informed through publications, training and content for the client portal, gld.digital.
• Identify colleagues with specialist expertise and help share that knowledge more widely.
• Support the work and priorities of the relevant Centres of Excellence.
• Contribute to innovation programmes, improving legal processes and learning from panel firms’ experience.
• Continue to build your own knowledge through seminars, training events, away days and conferences – and share what you learn with others.

In order to carry out your work successfully, you’ll need to have BPSS security clearance. In addition to this, those based in our London offices must hold or be willing to obtain CTC level clearance for this role. If London-based, you can start your position pending this clearance level; however, your appointment will be conditional upon obtaining CTC clearance.

More information about the vetting process can be found here. You should also be prepared to travel to meetings at sites around the UK.

About you

To succeed in this role, you’ll be an experienced litigation lawyer with reliable legal judgement, strong analytical skills and a good understanding of legal risk. You’ll have handled litigation matters with personal responsibility for casework, including drafting, advising on merits and contributing to litigation strategy. Just as importantly, you’ll understand the pressures litigation lawyers face and be able to turn that insight into useful knowledge and training.

You’ll be confident creating and sharing knowledge resources, grounded in secure legal research and sound analysis. You’ll also be a strong communicator, able to deliver training clearly and confidently, whether in person, online or at wider seminars and talk s.

The role a lawyer plays in the government is obvious to you, and you understand the impact good knowledge sharing can have on the services we provide. As this is a developing role, you’ll need to be someone who is motivated to help shape it, confident working independently and proactive in spotting where you can add value.

We’re looking for someone comfortable working with digital tools to make knowledge sharing easier and more effective. This could include using Teams channels to organise content or exploring tools such as Copilot and other Large Language Model technologies to create efficiencies. Experience in immigration litigation would be desirable, as would experience drafting or curating legal knowledge resources.

Benefits