Legal Manager, Employment in Manchester

We are recruiting a Legal Manager within our Employment Tribunals Managed Legal Services (MLS) team. This role provides structured legal oversight, delivery responsibility and operational control across a portfolio of employment tribunal matters. The role is designed to support scalable delivery as volumes increase, particularly as we transition more work to repeatable MLS delivery. The Legal Manager acts as the single point of accountability for MLS delivery, complementing Employment team partner and client team responsibilities.

What You’ll Do

• Overall responsibility for the MLS delivery of employment tribunal matters, acting as the single MLS team point of contact for the Employment team and for relevant client stakeholders.
• Support and supervise delivery of high‑volume “bronze” and lower complexity “silver” tribunal workstreams as they are transitioned into MLS.
• Oversee end‑to‑end delivery of tribunal work including post‑triage allocation, pleadings, disclosure, witness handling and hearing preparation.
• Supervise MLS lawyers and relevant paralegals, ensuring consistent application of legal judgement, playbooks and client‑specific approaches, using the available technologies for appropriate tasks.
• Undertake fee‑earning activity alongside managerial responsibilities, with own caseload.
• Allocate work across the team based on complexity (“right resource, right task”), ensuring cost efficiency without compromising quality.
• Act as escalation point for complex or non‑standard matters, coordinating with employment partners and teams as required.
• Ensure delivery meets agreed KPIs, SLAs and quality standards, with clear reporting and performance visibility.
• Embed structured workflows, playbooks and repeatable processes to enable scalable delivery.
• Drive process optimisation and continuous improvement, including use of legal technology and data insights.
• Manage utilisation, cost control, billing processes and overall financial performance of the MLS tribunal work.
• Work alongside Employment client teams to ensure roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and complementary.
• Support recruitment, onboarding and development of MLS team members as the service scales.

About You

• England & Wales qualified employment lawyer with 7+ years’ PQE in tribunal litigation.
• Strong technical expertise in employment disputes and tribunal process.
• Experience supervising junior lawyers and paralegals.
• Ability to operate in a hybrid role combining fee‑earning and delivery leadership.
• Strong stakeholder management skills and ability to work alongside partners and client teams.
• Experience of working with legal technology, including AI tools.
• Experience of high‑volume or process‑driven legal work (desirable).
• Commercial awareness and understanding of MLS or alternative delivery models (desirable).
• Experience of designing or operating structured workflows, playbooks or process improvements (desirable).

What We Offer

• Agile working options, including home working (subject to diary commitments).
• Carers’ leave of up to five paid days.
• 25 days’ annual leave, with the option to buy or carry over up to five additional days.
• Contributory pension (up to 5%).
• Private healthcare and death in service cover (4x salary).
• Access to benefits including an electric car scheme, cycle to work scheme, and interest‑free loans for season tickets, gym membership, or rental deposits.

Our Commitment to Inclusion

Our strength lies in our differences. We’re proud to be a Disability Confident and top Stonewall employer, a Valuable 500 member, a founding member of the Mindful Business Charter, a signatory of the Race at Work Charter, and a proud partner of Neurodiversity in Law. We value diverse perspectives and encourage everyone to bring their authentic selves to work.