Planning Solicitor - #2140391

GOVERNMENT LEGAL DEPARTMENT

Senior Lawyers – MHCLG

Location: Bristol, Croydon, Leeds, London, Manchester

Contract: Permanent

Salary: £74,960 national, £76,495 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 Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) Legal Advisers is a friendly, inclusive, high performing and collaborative Directorate with a strong sense of shared purpose. We provide legal support to the Secretary of State, Ministers and officials, and help implement policies to empower local leaders, spread opportunities, improve living standards across the UK and restore local pride.

Our ambitious agenda is focused on increasing housing supply and home ownership, improving building safety, devolving powers and budgets to boost local growth, supporting public services and creating community cohesion and social integration. We have a substantial programme of primary and secondary legislation, and work on an exciting and rewarding portfolio of core government legal work, advising and supporting policy development and delivery in areas that make a real difference to the lives of UK citizens.

Your role

You’ll be bringing your legal expertise to our newly formed New Towns and Memorials Team and play an important part in delivering some of the Government’s most ambitious objectives this Parliament.

The New Towns and Memorials Team provides legal advice and support across several Government priorities, including the programme of New Towns, the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor, the establishment of delivery vehicles such as development corporations and the creation of nationally important memorials. The Government views the New Towns Programme as an integral part of its plans to boost innovation, quality and competition in housebuilding.

As a Senior Lawyer working within the Memorials function, you’ll work with clients on the delivery of several key projects of national importance, including both the Holocaust Memorial and the Grenfell Tower Memorial. You’ll provide high quality, risk-based legal advice to delivery teams, helping these important projects progress with minimal legal impediments.

The work is varied and will engage with public law, planning law, commercial issues, statutory powers and government grants. It will require a versatile and capable lawyer who can operate confidently in an area involving complex, high-profile and highly sensitive issues.

You’ll also support the wider team in the establishment of bodies to plan, coordinate and deliver large-scale development projects, including potential development corporations, and contribute to shaping future communities.

This is an exciting and unique opportunity to provide time-sensitive, critical and valuable legal advice to clients concerned with delivery, working at the heart of some of the Government’s most significant and nationally important projects.

The wider team currently has members in Bristol, Croydon, Leeds and London.

As a Senior Lawyer, you’ll manage your legal workstream and develop and maintain strong relationships with key stakeholders. You’ll also provide professional leadership and support the development of junior colleagues. This role is likely to involve leading a mini-team of up to two others, including junior lawyers who may themselves be line managing Legal Officers, Legal Trainees, agency lawyers or paralegals.

About you

To be a success in this significant role, you’ll be a senior commercial, planning or advisory lawyer with a collaborative ethos and the ability to provide clear, practical and risk-based advice in a complex environment.

You’ll have the ability to think strategically and creatively, understand legal issues in their wider context and advise accordingly. Experience across areas such as public law, planning, commercial matters, statutory powers or government grants would be valuable.

You’ll be comfortable working on complex and high-profile projects, managing competing priorities and providing timely, fit-for-purpose advice. Given the sensitive nature of the Memorials programme, you’ll also need sound judgment, resilience and the ability to work collaboratively with clients and stakeholders.

You’ll be expected to have the skills and motivation to manage junior lawyers and provide strong professional leadership, even where line management has not previously formed a significant part of your role.

You should be a qualified Solicitor, Barrister or Chartered Legal Executive in England and Wales, and will have completed a training contract, pupillage or qualifying employment, or been exempted from this by the Law Society, the Bar Council or CILEx. You’ll also need a minimum of a 2.1 honours degree in any subject in your first degree (or its overseas equivalent), or evidence of high-level academic or professional achievement, such as a Graduate Diploma in Law, Legal Practice Course or Bar Professional Training Course, any of which must be underpinned by practical experience.

Chartered Legal Executives are eligible to apply where a qualifying law degree is held or the Graduate Diploma in Law has been completed, or where CILEx Level 6 exams have been passed at 50% or above in Contract Law, Criminal Law, Equity and Trusts Law, Europe