Senior Development Lawyer

Join to apply for the Senior Knowledge Development Lawyer role at Government Legal Department

The Government Legal Department (GLD) is the largest provider of legal services across government, working with all the main Whitehall departments. Our work touches on most aspects of public life, including developing and drafting legislation, helping to secure economic and trade relationships, providing legal advice on policies and ensuring value from contracts.

The Litigation Directorate focuses on public and private law litigation with constitutional importance. We handle matters such as immigration, welfare, climate change and energy, and provide expert representation to inquests and public inquiries, including a range of judicial review challenges.

When you join us in this important leadership role, you’ll take responsibility for the development and improvement of our Knowledge Management function. You’ll foster a positive culture of knowledge sharing and learning among our lawyers, provide strategic support to our senior management team, and work closely with colleagues across GLD, including the Professional Development, Digital and Change teams. Your additional responsibilities will include:

• Leading on the development of the Directorate’s knowledge and learning plans
• Line managing a team of four Knowledge Development Lawyers, each with a different specialism or focus (public law, private law, immigration, public inquiries)
• Monitoring, curating and promoting relevant developments in law and practice across various platforms to keep lawyers up to date
• Ensuring the team has access to relevant online research services and collections
• Using online knowledge and learning platforms to create, collect and share ideas and information
• Working with legal training sub-groups and other specialists to organise, design, promote and deliver relevant training
• Signposting and procuring training on research resources and carrying out research on specific issues
• Supporting clients with legal awareness publications, training and development of material for the client portal
• Identifying colleagues with relevant expertise and promoting this
• Participating in innovation programmes, promoting improvements to the legal process and liaising with panel firms to learn from their experience

In order to carry out your work successfully you’ll need to have security clearance to BPSS level. More information about the vetting process can be found here.

To be successful in this role you should possess strong leadership skills and a sound understanding of Public Law gained by advising clients and conducting cases, or through a specific knowledge-focused role. You should have the ability to approach legal issues by applying sound research, reliable judgement and an appreciation of risk, and experience of developing knowledge resources and delivering training.

You should be able to see legal issues in their wider context and advise accordingly. You’ll need to be highly organized and timely in your coordination and delivery of projects, and able to communicate complex legal issues in an accessible way tailored to your audience. Experience in knowledge development is essential; understanding immigration law would be desirable.

You should be a qualified Solicitor, Barrister or Chartered Legal Executive in England and Wales, and will have completed a training contract, pupillage or qualifying employment, or been exempted from this by the Law Society, the Bar Council or CILEx. A minimum 2.1 honours degree in any subject (or overseas equivalent), or evidence of high-level academic or professional achievement (such as a Graduate Diploma in Law, Legal Practice Course or Bar Professional Training Course) is required,…