Solicitor Employment Law (Part Time 22.2 Hours Per Week)

You will become a part- time employment solicitor dealing with a broad range of contentious and non-contentious work on behalf of the County Council and organisations with which it can trade. You will be expected to provide timely, accurate legal advice to council officers, including qualified HR practitioners, elected members, and partner organisations including academies and schools as appropriate.

The post involves dealing with a range of employment matters including contractual disputes, discrimination claims, wrongful termination allegations, wage disputes, severance agreements capability & disciplinary issues. It routinely involves representing the Council at internal hearings as well as external tribunals.

In addition to contentious work, you are required to provide general employment advice and support to client departments as well as assisting with the preparation of documents such as employment contracts (variations thereof), settlement agreements and policy documents., We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual’s personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below. This may include requests for term-time working, part-time hours, compressed hours, flexible start and finish times, home/remote working, etc.

• Must be commercially focused and be competent in handling a wide range of often complex employment law matters that face a large public sector employer. Have excellent written and oral skills. Be competent with drafting and negotiation.

• Have up to date knowledge of employment law to manage a caseload of matters relating to employment law, including unfair dismissal, redundancy, discrimination, TUPE, and contractual matters generally. Undertake some advocacy in employment tribunals.

• Be familiar with legal based IT applications. Demonstrate evidence of providing quality legal advice and assistance. Be aware Information law (e.g. Data Protection issues).

• Be able to communicate effectively orally and in writing. Be reliable and takes responsibility for organising own work to achieve objectives in order of priority and to deadlines.

• To think and act commercially and strategically in the provision of legal services and be willing to embrace change and new opportunities/challenges. Be able to work accurately under pressure with minimum supervision. Rapidly establish good working relationships of trust and confidence with professional clients by providing customer focused solutions.

• Be able to operate effectively individually and as part of a team. Have of a current driving licence and access to a vehicle.

You must also have an understanding of, and commitment to, equality, diversity and inclusion.

In addition, we also expect you to share our commitment to our values and will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the selection process., Disability Confident

About Disability Confident

A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer. It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. For more details please go to Disability Confident.

• Team working is very important to us and we expect our lawyers to work with colleagues in a positive and supportive way that promotes learning and development.

• Professional culture of proactive advice,

• High quality supervision and support from team and management

• Work life/ balance

• Flexible hybrid ways of working policies and IT systems supporting effective remote/home working

• Job satisfaction – delivering training supporting colleagues

• Interesting range of contentious and non-contentious work on behalf of the County Council and organisations with which it can trade.

Also an attractive benefits package including:

• Leave entitlement of up to 32 days depending on grade and length of service plus public holidays and leave buy back scheme,

• Generous local government pension scheme,

• Free on-site parking, restaurant and food outlet,

• Employee benefits and discount scheme.

• Employee-friendly policies including carer support and comprehensive wellbeing support services. The council is a ‘Mindful Employer’ and committed to the well- being of its staff and workplace equality initiatives.

• Career development support: the council recognises the value of mentoring, training and development. All managers in legal services are experienced and highly regarded legal practitioners both within the council and externally.

Oonagh O’Neill

Telephone: 0116 305 6012

Email: Oonagh.oneill@leics.gov.uk, If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post or you want to request an application pack in an alternative format, please contact our Employee Service Centre by telephoning 0300 3030222 (select option 2) or raising a ticket via our online portal: https://emss.freshdesk.com/support/home.