Lawyer in Croydon

Lawyer (or Legal Officer – up to 1 years PQE for lawyers qualified in England & Wales)

Locations: Bristol, Croydon, London, Leeds, Manchester, Stratford

Why HMRC?

Things at HMRC probably don’t work the way you’d think.

Tired of constant 60-hour plus weeks and the corporate grind?

Would you like to work on complex legal issues that make a positive difference to the nation’s finances? If you’re nodding your head reading this, you’ve come to the right place.

We offer hybrid working, with 60% average office attendance (and court time is counted as office hours), actual flexitime and genuine work-life balance alongside fascinating technical work.

Advisory Lawyers

Our advisory lawyers give advice on the interpretation and application of legislation. This includes advising HMRC and Treasury ministers on a wide variety of taxes, including business tax, personal tax, customs, excise, environmental taxes and VAT law. We also advise on other issues, such as welfare, insolvency, information law and international law and treaties. Our advice encompasses areas of public and administrative law. We implement policy through primary and secondary legislation, including through the annual Finance Bill. We support policy colleagues at all stages of the parliamentary process as well as drafting a high volume of statutory instruments.

Our commercial lawyers give advice on high value and complex public procurement and contractual commercial legal issues within government. This includes providing legal support to HMRC's largest transformation programmes including IT and Estates. We support HMRC’s day to day banking and general commercial operations, including all aspects of commercial contracts, intellectual property rights, public procurement and state aid, contract and supplier management, and dispute resolution.

Our criminal lawyers give advice and support to investigators and policy makers, supporting HMRC's tax enforcement activity in investigating serious complex fraud and other criminal non-compliance.

Litigation Lawyers

Our litigation lawyers conduct litigation across the full range of HMRC work. We litigate some of the most challenging and important high value, complex Government litigation. These include big money tax cases and cases ranging from resisting judicial review challenges to litigating civil cases against those who benefit from the proceeds of crime. Our cases will often involve novel and challenging points of law and contribute to developing the interpretation of the law. We regularly litigate through the higher courts to the Supreme Court.

Who are we looking for?

We are recruiting qualified lawyers, and we would like you to apply whatever level of experience you have. We have vacancies for lawyers in both our advisory and litigation work. Although you do not need to have any existing knowledge of our work or tax experience, as part of the application process you will be required to consider public law, which is at the heart of everything we do. Strong intellectual and analytical skills are important for our lawyers. We will give you training and support so you can continue to develop your existing knowledge and expertise together with developing specific expertise in our work. You can expect to move teams within our diverse practice every few years to build up your skills and experience.

Grade 7/Legal Officer

Depending on the duration and nature of your previous legal experience, if successful you may be appointed as a Grade 7 lawyer or as a Legal Officer. Solicitors qualified in England & Wales who have less than 1 year’s post-qualification legal experience will usually be appointed as a Legal Officer. Barristers qualified in England & Wales who have less than 2 years’ post-qualification legal experience will usually be appointed as a Legal Officer. For lawyers qualified in other jurisdictions the level of post-qualification legal experience required to be appointed as a Grade 7 lawyer or Legal Officer will vary, depending on the qualification requirements for your particular jurisdiction.

Legal experience is defined as either working as a trainee lawyer pre-qualification or working as a lawyer post qualification.

Person specification

You must ensure that you meet all the eligibility criteria listed below.

Qualifications

Academic and Professional

You should have a minimum of a 2.1 honours degree (in any subject). If you hold an overseas degree qualification this should be equivalent to a 2.1 degree.

HMRC will consider applicants who do not have a 2.1 degree but only where satisfactory evidence of equivalent high level academic and/or professional achievement can be provided. For example, if you have:

• Completion of a level 6 apprenticeship or other level 6 qualification
• A commendation or distinction in the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL)/CPE or the Legal Practice Course (LPC)
• An LLM or other postgraduate degree
• Very competent on the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC)

You must be qualified to practise as a Solicitor, Barrister or Chartered Legal Executive in England and Wales. However, we also accept applications from overseas qualified candidates. You must have completed a training contract/pupillage/qualifying employment or have been exempted from this by the Law Society, the Bar Council or CILEx.

Please note that you cannot apply more than 3 months before your qualification date.

Professional entry criteria for Chartered Legal Executives (Fellows). You are eligible to apply where:

• a Qualifying Law Degree (QLD) is held; or
• SQE 1 and 2 passed or
• the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL)/CPE has been completed, or
• where exams have been passed (i.e. a score of 50% or above achieved) at CILEx Level 6, in all the seven foundation subjects in law: contract law, criminal law, equity and trusts law, European Union Law, land law, public law and law of tort.

Note, there are specific requirements relating to academic achievement in the CILEx Level 6 exams where these are being used to demonstrate 2.1 degree equivalence. In these circumstances an average score of 65% or above is required across exams passed in the seven foundation subjects in law where studied at CILEx level 6: namely contract law, criminal law, equity and trusts law, European Union Law, land law, public law and law of tort.

If you are a qualified lawyer in a jurisdiction outside England and Wales, you may be able to apply but this will depend on the level of your pre and post qualification legal experience. Legal experience is defined as either working as a trainee lawyer pre-qualification or working as a lawyer post qualification. If you are recently qualified and have less than 2 years legal experience obtained in your qualifying jurisdiction in total (whether gained pre or post qualification) you are likely to be ineligible. If you have less than 3 years legal experience overall you will be appointed as a Legal Officer. In addition you should be aware that we need you to become qualified in England and Wales within 2 years of starting employment with us, and your employment will be conditional upon you successfully becoming qualified within this time. This may cause you some cost. Further information on qualification is available from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and the Bar Standards Board (BSB).

You need to fulfil the person specification, comprising the academic criteria and professional qualifications including either qualification as a Solicitor or Barrister or Chartered Legal Executive in England and Wales, (or that you will be so qualified within 3 months from the date that the advert closes). If you are an eligible foreign qualified lawyer (with at least 2 years legal experience whether pre or post qualification), you will need to become qualified in England and Wales within 2 years of starting employment with HMRC.