Come and join Legal Services and help make a difference to the people of West Sussex.
The Opportunity
Salary: £25,119 to £33,024 per annum
Working Pattern: Full time, 37 hours per week
Location: County Hall, Chichester and working from home
Interview date: w/c 20 May 2024
West Sussex County Council are looking for a legal assistant to join our experienced and motivated team. As part of the role, you will have the opportunity to qualify as a legal executive or solicitor (with both financial assistance towards the CILEX/CPQ/SQE or any other equivalent legal qualification, fees considered and study leave). This is a fantastic opportunity to start a career in the legal profession whilst working in a legal environment. If you would like to work in a team providing legal advice in the areas of criminal and education law, then this could be the job for you. You will need a flexible approach and excellent organisational skills.
As a Legal Assistant, you will be working in the People Services team with conduct of your own cases, to include but not limited to undertaking advocacy in the Magistrates' Court, communicating with witnesses, solicitors, barristers, court officers and members of the public as required., You will also, provide legal advice to the Council's independent appeals panels.
The successful candidate must be a team player able to work under pressure, with an eye for detail, an awareness of confidentiality and excellent interpersonal skills and able to communicate with people at all levels.
What are we looking for?
- You will be able to work flexibly to meet the demands of this fast-paced team, organising your own workload and prioritising work as required. There may be occasions where you will need to respond to unexpected situations, for example responding to a change of court date at short notice.
- You will have confident presentational and advocacy skills
- You will have excellent IT skills in a range of Microsoft Office applications.
- You will be able to achieve and maintain good working relationships with clients, colleagues, other Local Authority staff, and external Stakeholders
Please note, this is a career graded post covering from Grade 6 to Grade 8. Please refer to the attached job descriptions for further information on the Key Skills as well as the Qualifications and/or experience required.
If you are successful through our selection process, you will be evaluated and appointed against the job description that aligns the closest to your qualifications and experience.
Working for us
As well as adding real value to our service users and our communities, as an employer we recognise our employees are central in being able to achieve this. To recognise this we want to help support your development and provide an great place to work ensuring you can fulfil your full potential, have access to a range of benefits including:
- an excellent local government pension scheme
- generous holiday entitlement of 25 - 27 days (plus opportunity to buy additional leave)
- a range of flexible working options, depending on your job role
- maternity, paternity, dependency and adoption leave
- volunteering opportunities
- training and development opportunities, including coaching and mentoring
- a range of discounts giving our staff access to hundreds of offers; groceries, travel, cinema tickets, days out, leisure activities, high street retailers and the opportunity to save over £1,000 a year through our West Sussex Choices benefits platform (see our Staff discounts page if you are a business looking to offer a discount)
- health and wellbeing benefits including access to our Employee Assistance Programme, Mental Health First Aiders and Voluntary Health Cash Plans
For a full list this can be found at our Rewards and Benefits page.
Further information
The reference number for this role is CRS00827.
For an informal conversation or for further information regarding the role, please contact Fiona Gardiner (Principal Solicitor) at . For issues or queries regarding your application please contact .
Internal candidates wishing to apply for this role will be considered for a secondment position. Please can you therefore discuss and agree this with your manager before applying for this position.
To apply, please follow the links below to upload your CV and complete the application form. In your application form please outline your motivations for applying and explaining the skills and experience you can bring to the role (please refer to the key skills) ensuring that any gaps in employment are covered in your CV. Please ensure you have saved the job description attached to the main advert on our website as, once the job has closed, you may not have the opportunity to download again.
We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. This post is subject to 3 years referencing and a health check.