About the team
Working in a large and successful legal team that provides comprehensive legal service in all areas, our lawyers are crucial to the County Council's continued success. We have high standards for our services and we are pleased to be recognised as a Centre of Excellence by the Law Society's Lexcel quality standard assessor.
With more than 100 employees, it is one of the biggest legal departments in local government and offers complete legal service in all areas to both the County Council, District Councils and to other public sector bodies.
Hertfordshire County Council is a great opportunity for ambitious, passionate and organised Lawyers who want to join a big and flourishing public sector legal team.
Requirements
- You will be a qualified Solicitor, Barrister or Chartered Legal Executive
- Demonstrable ability to manage a varied and demanding caseload
- Strong written and oral communication skills, used to build and maintain working relationships, and to produce and present reports
- Experience in working effectively as part of a team
- It is possible that the role could involve travel to other parts of Hertfordshire so access to your own transport would be beneficial
- We welcome applicants who possesses excellent drafting skills and the ability to negotiate documents for a wide range of matters.
- Previous experience of working within a Local Authority environment would be useful but is not essential.
- Specific requirements for relevant teams can be found below
Our Legal Teams
Environment
Giving legal advice and support to client departments and District Councils on various planning, highways and environmental issues, the Environment Law Team is looking for someone with extensive knowledge of the broad range of environmental work, including s106 agreements, highway agreements, minerals planning, waste planning, advising planning committee, rights of way, advising on the effects of changing legislation and case law.
Commercial & Procurement
You will need to provide strategic advice on procurements, subsidy control and data protection, as well as interpreting different contractual documents. The role also requires you to stay updated on changing legislation and the effects of changing legislation and case law, and to be interested in developing expertise in other areas, such as subsidy control.
This role is about being aware of both the legal and the commercial aspects of contracts, procurement and future service delivery across Hertfordshire County Council.
You should ideally have extensive knowledge of a wide range of commercial work, including construction contracts, company secretarial work, various concession, goods and services contracts, funding agreements, and pension arrangements.
Adult Care, Children and Health
This role gives you the chance to work in a diverse range of legal areas related to the protection of Vulnerable Individuals in Hertfordshire . Therefore, you will need to be able to offer accurate, comprehensive and prompt legal advice while handling a varied and busy caseload.
The particular focus of this role is to provide Adult Social Care Law advice, including advice to the Hertfordshire Deprivation of Liberty Supervisory Body, Approved Mental Health Professionals and to act as an advocate before Tribunals and the Court.
Property
We are looking for applicants who have excellent drafting skills and the ability to negotiate documents for different property transactions. You should have extensive knowledge of the wide range of property work, including Landlord and Tenant matters, conveyancing, and researching and advising on the effects of changing legislation and case law, and also be interested in learning more about other areas, such as agricultural law.
Childcare Litigation
Providing high quality litigation and advice service to our Children's Services department, we are looking for candidates with a working knowledge of the Children Act 1989, Adoption and Children Act 2002, Public Law Outline 2014 and the Children and Families Act 2014, to investigate and advise on the implications of changing legislation and case law, attend and advise at legal planning meetings, to conduct advocacy before the Family Court and manage a caseload of child care matters.
Dispute Resolution
This role offers the opportunity to be involved in a wide variety of legal areas including Civil Litigation, Housing, commercial property, Highways and planning disputes as well as debt recovery in order to support the full breadth of the services of the County Council, Partners and External Clients (which include Stevenage Borough Council) You will need to be able to provide accurate, comprehensive and timely legal advice while conducting litigation across a number of different courts and tribunals, managing a varied and demanding caseload.
Your Work directly supports in the County Council's efforts to improve Residents Lives, and champion Equality, Fairness and Sustainability. Are you up for the challenge? Would you like to make a difference?