Associate - Employment and Education in Leeds

Hours: Monday to Friday, 09:00 - 17:30 (37.5 hours per week)

Hill Dickinson are proud to be named as a Top Ten Employer for Working Families 2025 for the second year running and so, we are happy to consider flexible working opportunities to help you balance your work and home life.

Location: Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds

Benefits

• Annual leave starting at 25 days
• Annual bonus scheme
• Birthday privilege day and Christmas shutdown
• Holiday buy, sell and carryover scheme
• 2 charity volunteering or pro bono days
• Optional private medical insurance via BUPA
• Annual fitness allowance
• Flexible pension scheme
• ISA saving scheme and independent financial advice
• Electric or hybrid vehicle lease scheme
• Medicash EAP with access to counselling
• Enhanced family leave policies
• Access to confidential, expert support via Fertifa in relation to reproductive health and wellbeing
• Access to 10 days fully subsidised emergency or back‑up care per year via Bright Horizons
• Life assurance
• Group income protection
• Annual travel season ticket loan
• Hybrid working and dress for your day policy
• Bespoke training and development opportunities
• Financial contribution towards home working equipment

Role Overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join our successful and rapidly growing Education team. The role offers the opportunity to work alongside Luke Green and Joe Orme‑Paul who have developed our leading education practice with clients across the sector including schools, further education institutions and universities with a national reach. You will be given plenty of client responsibility and exposure but at the same time be part of a supportive team environment. Our dedicated team of lawyers support a range of educational institutions with various regulatory and compliance issues. The Education team sits alongside our Employment practice with strong collaboration between lawyers to deliver client service excellence and a complete package of essential legal services.

Key Responsibilities

• Advising on the development and application of statutory policies
• Advising on the requirements of equality law, particularly in the context of special educational needs and Children and Families Act 2014 regime
• Supporting clients with complaints, process management and outcomes
• Advice and support with academy trust regulation including funding agreements, notices to improve, the application of the Academy Trust Handbook
• Advice and support on decisions to exclude pupils/students, process and outcome
• Admissions advice including oversubscription criteria development, local disputes and representations before the Schools Adjudicator
• Providing advice and support on Freedom of Information and Data Protection requests
• Governance advice for maintained schools and academy trusts, including drafting documents and liaising with the Department for Education
• Commercial contract reviews and advices
• Procurement advice
• Academy transactional work
• Conducting sector‑focused litigation, including Judicial Review, SEND Tribunal, and County Court proceedings.

Qualifications

• Qualified Solicitor (NQ - 3 years PQE)
• Demonstrable experience in supporting an education team.
• The ability and experience of managing a caseload providing sound commercial advice.
• Transactional support experience.
• Excellent organisational skills with the ability to prioritise tasks and work under pressure.
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal.
• The ability to work as part of a team and independently.
• Adheres to guidelines and procedures.
• An understanding of clients’ needs and expectations.
• Travel to clients and other offices.
• Flexibility in approach and a willingness to work outside normal office hours, if required.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

Hill Dickinson is committed to providing fairness and equal opportunity for all regardless of age, gender, gender identity, ethnic origin, disability, sexual orientation, marital or transgender status, nationality, religion or belief. We understand that our power as a firm comes from empowering our people and that it is only by encouraging and enabling individuals to be themselves at work that we can truly benefit from their rich and varied strengths. Hill Dickinson is an equal opportunities employer. All applications received by the firm will be considered based on their merit alone and we welcome applications from all suitably qualified individuals regardless of background and from all routes to qualification, with both the SRA and CILEx.

Disability Support

We are a Disability Confident employer, which means if there is anything that we can do to make your visit easier, so you are able to perform at your best, please let us know. You can contact the HR team at hrteam@hilldickinson.com should you require any adjustments to the application or interview process.