Senior Lawyer - Employment
| Posting date: | 10 July 2025 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £48,710 to £52,805 per year |
| Additional salary information: | Competitive |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 28 July 2025 |
| Location: | Stafford, ST16 2DH |
| Company: | Staffordshire County Council |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | staffscc/TP/831/3436 |
Summary
Due to growth in our work streams we have an exciting and unique opportunity for you to join our legal services team at Staffordshire County Council.
We are a modern, progressive, and forward-thinking authority that is ambitious and empowers its employees to be courageous and innovative in their approach.
Staffordshire Legal Services is a large in-house corporate legal team, offering a significant breadth of experience and expertise. We support and retain our lawyers, trainees and support staff by offering a wide variety of work, an extensive benefits package and offering training and mentoring to aide their progression. We want everyone to enjoy their work, and feel challenged and appreciated for what they do and to make a positive difference to the lives of the people of Staffordshire. People are often unaware that Legal Services support the Council to fulfil every function when delivering its agenda and priorities, in addition to the Staffordshire pension fund, and a wide range of external clients. This keeps the work interesting, challenging and often high value and high profile.
We genuinely recognise the benefit of achieving the right work life balance and our extensive package of benefits support this. Lots of organisations offer this however our staff survey reliably informs us that our work ethos truly delivers this. Our package includes a generous holiday entitlement, increasing significantly with service, and an additional annual leave purchase scheme. Flexible and term time only working, agile working, employee travel and entertainment discounts, a local government pension scheme, optional car lease scheme and a staff parking discount scheme. We also offer family friendly polices including maternity, adoption, paternity, and parental leave.
Main Responsibilities
Responsibilities will include:
- Providing legal advice on all aspects of employment law, including disciplinary, grievance, TUPE, redundancy and equalities matters.
- Representing the Council in Employment Tribunals and other legal proceedings.
- Draft and review employment contracts, policies and procedures.
- Support colleagues and senior managers with complex employment issues.
- Adherence to the Legal Services Unit’s quality standards (Lexcel) including time-recording in order to maintain professional standards.
- Deliver training and updates on employment law developments.
- To handle confidential data sensitively and securely in accordance with policy.
The Ideal Candidate
We are looking for you to be a qualified Chartered Legal Executive, Solicitor or Barrister and be adept at building positive relationships with the client and wider team.
We are also looking for you to have,
- A comprehensive understanding of employment law
- An in-depth understanding of the work done by the public sector, although previous local government experience is not essential
- An ability to communicate clearly, confidently and effectively and build positive working relationships.
- Strong advocacy, negotiation, and drafting skills.
- Ability to work independently and manage a varied caseload.
- Meticulous attention to detail
- Effective time management, prioritisation skills and an ability to work under the demands of competing pressures.
- An ability to delegate work in order to generate capacity.
Due to annual leave, interviews will take place on 28th August 2025
If you are unsure if your skills and experience are suitable for this role or for an informal chat please contact Manisha Makwana, Senior Solicitor (Employment) at manisha.makwana@staffordshire.gov.uk for a suitable time to be arranged.
About Staffordshire County Council
We are no ordinary county council:
Our Values:
The core of who we are as an organisation. Just like we all have personal values that shape our thoughts and behaviour, organisational values drive how we think and act collectively.
Our values were created and shaped by colleague feedback and national best practice and they sit at the heart of People Strategy:
We have a real sense of community spirit that brings our people together. This feeling of belonging means we are all connected to what we do and take pride in the difference we make every day for Staffordshire people. We are ambitious and our sights are set firmly on a better future.
We look forward and race ahead - that goes for your career too.
Our benefits:
We recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive working environment where employees can achieve their full potential and achieve a healthy work-life balance.
In addition to your salary, as a member of staff, you will have access to Our rewards and benefits - Careers at Staffordshire
Our recruitment process:
As an Authority we are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people/vulnerable adults and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
Staffordshire County Council is an equal opportunities organisation and Disability Confident employer. We encourage applications from all background and communities
As part of our commitment as a Disability Confident employer, a Gold Award Armed Forces employer and our commitment to supporting care leavers - we offer a guaranteed interview as long as your application meets the minimum criteria for the post.
Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme