Senior Lawyer

The Role

Social Work England is the specialist body that regulates social workers in their vital role. Every day, social workers support millions of people to improve their chances in life. We believe in the power of collaboration and share a common goal with those we regulate – to protect the public, enable positive change, and ultimately improve people’s lives.

This Senior Lawyer role will focus on line management of junior colleagues, providing supervision of staff in training, alongside giving expert regulatory legal advice and support to the organisation as the regulator.

Under the supervision and with the support of the Head of Legal - Regulation, you will handle day to day conduct of statutory appeals and judicial reviews of our regulatory decisions, and line manage three lawyers and a paralegal, overseeing their areas of specialism, including use of family court information in fitness to practise proceedings. You will also have the opportunity to contribute to key strategic projects and their implementation, ensuring legal compliance and that any changes are aligned with our statutory framework.

What you will do

• Conduct and supervise civil/Administrative Court litigation, including judicial reviews and s29 appeals of our fitness to practise decisions, working with the Lawyers, trainee lawyer and Paralegal you line manage.
• Supervise the Lawyer (Regulatory and Family Court) to handle applications to the family court relating to the disclosure of documentation relevant to fitness to practise cases.
• Review and quality-assure legal advice drafted by the lawyers and paralegals in the team and regularly attend meetings which form part of our wider fitness to practise quality assurance processes.
• Develop excellent working relationships with internal stakeholders across the business and support the Heads of Legal to manage budgets and workloads across the wider team.
• Use your legal expertise and knowledge to ensure the team provides solutions-focused support and advice on all regulatory matters including policy and process development, and production and review of guidance.
• Support the legal team to deliver its objectives including the design and delivery of training and promotion of legal awareness to the rest of the organisation.
• Participate in and provide strategic legal advice to project teams and working groups as necessary to deliver the corporate strategy.
• Ensure effective stakeholder engagement with the leadership and other colleagues across the business and with our external lawyers and contacts, as required.
• You will provide management support and deputise as required for the Head of Legal – Regulation with a particular focus on the regulatory areas of our remit across fitness to practise, registration and education quality assurance
• Instruct and liaise with external lawyers as required, managing costs effectively.

Your skills, knowledge and experience

• Experience as a Solicitor, Barrister or Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives, ideally with more than 5 years post-qualification experience. Must be registered with, or be eligible to immediately join: the SRA Solicitors’ register, BSB Barristers’ register or CILEX Authorised Practitioners’ directory.
• Substantive experience of public law and civil litigation, including appeals and judicial review.
• Substantive experience of advising on professional regulation, ideally in the context of the regulation of health and/or social care.
• Experience of advising on wider regulatory matters and family law is desirable but not essential.
• Experience of line management and/or supervision or a willingness to quickly develop these skills.
• Strong legal analytical skills and judgement and experience of managing caseloads with minimal supervision, with the ability to analyse complex issues and present risk-based and practical advice and options to senior stakeholders.
• The ability to work to tight deadlines, be calm under pressure and flexibly manage competing priorities.
• Excellent written communication skills, ability to draft clear and comprehensive correspondence and to present information on complex issues clearly and succinctly for a range of different audiences.
• Ideally experience of involvement in projects and policy development or implementation.
• The ability to work cross-organisationally, working well with others and responding positively, creatively and supportively to a variety of colleagues while maintaining high and consistent standards.
• A demonstrable commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion. 

Details

• Job type: Permanent
• Working pattern: Full time. We offer flexible working subject to business need. 
• Salary: £53,426 per year, rising to £55,749 per year after successful completion of a 6-month probationary period.
• Benefits: flexible working, contributory pension, life insurance and benefits portal 

Application

During the application process, you'll be asked to provide answers to three questions from the job description. These answers will be what your application is scored on, please answer in as much detail as possible using examples where necessary.