Principal Advocate - Housing and Community Safety in Birmingham

A brilliant opportunity to join a dynamic, progressive legal service where you will be given the opportunity to work on some incredible projects and cases, while learning and developing as a leading local government lawyer. Birmingham City Council's legal service is unique and one of the largest in-house local authority legal teams. The City Council is on its journey of resetting, reshaping and restarting and everyone within legal services is essential to the Council's success and achieving beneficial outcomes for our citizens.

Legal Services covers all areas of work that the Council undertakes, from employment to property, from social care to contracts. The variety of work that our team undertakes is wide and at the highest level. The work is challenging and rewarding in equal measure. Based in Victoria Square in the City Centre, you will have excellent transport links, access to Courts and tribunals, partner organisations and all the benefits that working in the wonderful City of Birmingham brings.

Birmingham City Council is committed to achieving excellence, putting our citizens first, acting courageously and being true to our word. If this resonates with you, then we want to hear from you.

We have one Principal Advocate vacancy in our Housing and Community Safety team. We are looking for an advocate who has experience of undertaking housing and community safety work. This role is to act as in-house advocate for the whole team dealing with a diverse caseload consisting of antisocial behaviour and community safety matters including Public Space Protection Orders, injunction applications, committal applications, possession, succession, unlawful occupiers and providing general advice and assistance in housing management matters. You will attend court as required and sometimes at short notice for breach/committal hearings.

You will be responsible for your own caseload as well as assisting junior members of the team to motivate, guide and develop them. As a principal advocate you will provide high-quality legal support for the Council's strategic goals, manage a complex and politically sensitive caseload, advise on legal and evidential matters at the request of a colleague or client and take instructions from colleagues as an alternative to counsel.

Key responsibilities:

• Acting as a legal advisor to ensure compliance with statutory duties and obligations, to protect the best interests of the Council
• Providing high quality, innovative, well researched and comprehensive specialist legal advice
• Attending courts, tribunals, public inquiries or other meetings, undertaking advocacy and representing clients in negotiations and discussions
• Appearing as advocate in the higher courts representing the Council, undertaking a wide range of hearings
• Providing evidential strengths and weaknesses in a case and advise on appropriate next steps or options
• Drafting court documents, briefing notes and legal documents
• Supporting the Legal Services Management Team to meet practice management requirements and ensure compliance with policies and procedures. Play a key role in maintaining high service standards.

You will need to possess a current practising certificate as a Solicitor/Chartered Legal Executive or be a member of the Bar who has completed pupillage/registered Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives. In addition you will need to possess a Higher Rights Qualification or be willing to obtain one.

Benefits of working at Birmingham City Council:

• 30 days annual leave – Increases to 33 days after 5 years and 35 days after 10 years, plus option to purchase additional leave
• Access to voluntary benefits providers that support health, wellbeing and making the most of your leisure time
• Family friendly policies e.g., maternity/adoption, paternity, shared parental leave, carers’ leave
• Health and wellbeing support networks e.g., independent, and confidential employee assistance and counselling, occupational health, etc.
• Employee communities and support groups including Corporate Black Workers Support Group, Disability and LGBT+ Networks, Menopause Support Forum, etc.
• We are a disability confident employer
• Membership of job-related pension scheme, West Midlands Pension Fund or Teachers’ Pensions, with generous employer contributions
• Access to ‘My Rewards’ – over 800 individual brands providing discounts and savings including high street stores, supermarkets, utility, and insurance providers, as well as great days out … to name but a few!
• Opportunities to join great salary sacrifice schemes e.g., Cycle to Work, Annual Travel and Car Parking, as well as making the most of Tax and National Insurance savings (additional schemes to launch soon)

Please upload an up-to-date CV and Personal Statement via the attachments part of your application. The Personal Statement should outline how you meet the essential criteria for the role through your personal qualities, skills and experience and include your motivation for applying to the post. Note the Personal Statement should be no more than 1500 words. Unfortunately, we cannot consider any applications without a CV and Personal Statement attached.

We encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that represents the communities we serve. Our data tells us that for this level of role, ethnic minorities are underrepresented and therefore we will use positive action to support us to achieve diverse shortlists. This may mean that recruitment times are a little longer, but we think this is worth it to achieve our aim.

Birmingham City Council is an accredited Disability Confident Leader employer, and we are committed to employing, retaining and developing all of our people. We want to ensure your recruitment journey with us is a positive and equitable one, so please let us know if there are any reasonable adjustments, additional support, accessibility needs, or if there is any way in which we can support you through your application.

We are dedicated to supporting internal mobility and the development of our people. As such, applications from internal employees and those under S118 will be given priority and reviewed before external applications are considered. We welcome applications from people with caring responsibilities and flexible working options will be considered.

For any informal enquiries please contact: Julia Lynch at Julia.Lynch@birmingham.gov.uk or Deborah Carter-Hughes at Deborah.Carter-Hughes@birmingham.gov.uk. Proof of Right to work in the UK will be required for all applicants in accordance with UK Home Office requirements, before any employment offer can be confirmed.

We strive to advertise all roles for a minimum of two weeks. However, due to high application volumes vacancies may close earlier than the stated deadline. We encourage you to submit your application without delay to ensure consideration.