Legal Assistant
| Posting date: | 16 August 2024 |
|---|---|
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 15 September 2024 |
| Location: | Portsmouth, PO1 2AL |
| Company: | Portsmouth City Council |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 4070 |
Summary
Salary: Band 8, £33,945 to £36,647 per annum
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full time (37 hours per week)
Closing date: Thursday 29 August 2024, 23:59
Portsmouth City Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, and young people, and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. It is also committed to promoting quality childcare across the city that works to improve outcomes for children.
DBS Disclosure at Standard level will be required prior to any offer of employment and this post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.
Every post is subject to PCC and Portsmouth Safeguarding Children’s Board safer recruitment procedures.
Why come to live and work in Portsmouth?
Portsmouth is a great waterfront city and a vibrant place to live and work. It is an island city with an “inner city” feel, a seaside location packed with attractions and events, and the advantage of fantastic countryside on its doorstep. With fast road and rail links to London, Brighton and major airports, and ferry links to Europe, it is the perfect place to live and work. Portsmouth has a strong history of partnership working and has successfully integrated several local services.
The Service:
Portsmouth Legal Services is a friendly hardworking and dedicated team of approximately 40 lawyers and assistant staff who provide commercial and litigation support to the Council departments. We are committed to ensuring an excellent service in all aspects of our work.
Your New Role:
You will draft legal documents, and provide quality advice and support to the Council's departments. You will conduct legal research in a variety of areas, assist with progressing cases through Court and deal with general queries across a wide range of issues. You will liaise with Courts, counsel's chambers, external legal representatives and other external agencies and services. As your role develops you may have your own case load and the opportunity to undertake advocacy in Court with supervision.
Please read the job profile for the full details of this role.
What you'll need to succeed:
You can carry out legal research and are interested in developing inter-disciplinary legal skills. You can work independently or in a team, are organised, have excellent attention to detail and can prioritise your caseload. You are a good communicator and have an excellent standard of literacy. You can take a comprehensive and inclusive approach to your work with others within your team and legal services, and you are people-focussed with an ability to develop relationships on behalf of legal services with our client departments. You understand working with integrity in a politically sensitive environment, and have a consistent, supportive, respectful, proactive and flexible attitude to support your colleagues in a team environment. You have a BA or equivalent Level 6 qualification, law preferred.
Please read the job profile for the full details of this role.
The role will envisage ongoing training; as such candidates are encouraged to confirm within their application what ideally would be their preferred training paths leading to qualification as a solicitor, barrister or member of CILEX. Please set out how you are qualified to embark upon you chosen path, how long such a path would take and what additional qualifications need to be obtained. This will enable a focussed training path to be discussed at interview.
You will need to demonstrate that you have the Right to Work in the UK. No post will be offered without it.
What you'll get in return:
We really appreciate our employees and fully realise they are essential to our success and look to offer an inclusive, supportive working environment where employees can reach their potentials with a healthy work life balance, offering the following rewards:
- Generous annual leave (27 days per year rising to 31, pro rata for part time hours) with the potential to purchase additional leave.
- A fantastic pension which allows you the opportunity to pay in more for that greater return.
- Flexible working options including hybrid working with a minimum of two days office based per week pro rata, giving you the flexibility to work up to three days at home every week. Hybrid working is dependent on the role and service needs, exact details will be discussed with you at interview.
- Access to a wide range of training and development opportunities including apprenticeships.
- Extensive wellbeing support through the Employee Assistance Programme
- Discount on travel, travel loans and the bike loan scheme
- Discounts on a wide range of goods and services – access a range of discounts and offers from thousands of restaurants, shops and more.
Staff rewards: https://careers.portsmouth.gov.uk/working-for-the-council/
Additional Information:
The full job profile is attached here.
Contact Details for an Informal Discussion:
Peter Baulf, City Solicitor and Monitoring Officer, peter.baulf@portsmouthcc.gov.uk, 023 91 834 041.
A commitment to our values:
We are committed to our values of respect, integrity, collaboration, inclusivity and being people-focussed. These values set out how we can contribute to the success of the council and our own success as individuals. Learn more about our values and behaviours.
Application process:
How to complete your application: https://careers.portsmouth.gov.uk/how-to-apply/
We are a disability confident employer - committed to ensuring that our recruitment and selection process is inclusive and accessible and welcome applications from all areas of society.
Please submit both a CV and a cover letter/personal statement. Remember to demonstrate in your cover letter/personal statement why you are suitable against each of the points described in the 'Who is the Person' points on the Job Profile, using examples from your experience or transferable skills. This might be through qualifications or descriptive examples from your work / personal experience, which clearly illustrates what you did and the effect it had. Please also cover your preferred training path, as detailed above.
If you upload a CV without a cover letter/personal statement, it is unlikely that your application will be successful.
Please ensure you provide your full education history from secondary school, include name/address of establishment, details of relevant qualifications & awarding body. Please explain any gaps.
We will email applicants from time to time; please ensure you check e-mail folders as sometimes our e-mails may go into spam/junk folders.
We look forward to speaking with you soon.
Should you require any support in completing the application form please contact recruit@portsmouthcc.gov.uk.