Assistant Legal Directors

With the UK's exit from the EU and rapidly evolving markets, the CMA has an exciting and challenging agenda, making it an interesting place for lawyers to define their careers. 

This is particularly the case with the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill currently progressing through parliament, which will provide the CMA with new powers to promote competition and tackle anti-competitive practices in digital markets and to enforce consumer law. The work within our advisory teams is varied, complex and highly rewarding, and lawyers are encouraged to apply their legal skills across a number of our practice areas while also developing specialist expertise.

The CMA is an independent non-ministerial UK government department and is the UK’s principal competition and consumer protection authority. We work to ensure that consumers get a good deal when buying goods and services, and that businesses operate within the law. Our statutory duty is to promote competition, both within and outside the UK, for the benefit of consumers, and our mission is to make markets work well in the interests of consumers, businesses and the economy. The CMA is a hugely rewarding, diverse and stimulating place to work – an opportunity to work for the public good and to stretch and develop yourself in doing so.

Reporting to Legal Directors, and with direct engagement with Senior Legal Directors, the General Counsel and decision makers, your key focus will be to ensure that decisions taken by the CMA are legally robust, including by identifying legal risks early and ensuring that these are managed appropriately. Our advisory lawyers are embedded in project teams working across the CMA’s entire portfolio as follows:

•    Competition law enforcement (for example the hydrocortisone, liothyronine and Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook (now Meta) abuse of dominance cases).
•    Consumer law enforcement (for example tackling misleading online reviews and endorsements, unfair promotions by gambling firms and ensuring fair holiday cancellation and refund rights during the COVID-19 pandemic).
•    Merger control (for example the recent Phase 2 investigations and litigation relating to the Facebook/GIPHY and the Microsoft/Activision mergers).
•    Markets work (for example the market investigation into cloud gaming and mobile browsers, market studies into mobile ecosystems and music streaming and past work on digital advertising, funeral services and electric vehicle charging).
•    Regulatory work: ensuring fair conduct in the appeals and references to the CMA in regulated sectors – often concerning key price controls.
•    Digital markets regulation (for example supporting the CMA’s involvement in the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum and the forthcoming operation of the Digital Markets Unit).
•    UK internal market and subsidy control (for example supporting the CMA’s Office of the Internal Market, and post-Brexit subsidy control).

As an Assistant Legal Director, you will advise case teams and decision makers throughout the life of a project, taking responsibility for the delivery of high-quality analysis, and advising on decisions, reports and policy. At any one time, you may focus primarily on one or more of mergers, markets and regulatory activity, competition or consumer law enforcement or subsidy control. You will also have line management responsibilities, coaching and motivating staff.

The role will involve engagement throughout the CMA and externally. You may also have the opportunity from time to time to fulfil a delivery function; that is, to be responsible for project managing a case.

As a minimum requirement, you will be a fully qualified lawyer entitled to practise as a Solicitor, Barrister or Chartered Legal Executive (CILEx Fellow) in the UK. Applicants qualified in a jurisdiction outside the UK will be required to undertake the Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE) within 3 years of appointment, and employment will be conditional upon the successful completion of the SQE within this time period.  

To succeed in this role, you will have significant experience delivering high-quality analysis, providing case advice, report writing and contributing to policy in complex and technical areas of law and practice.  Knowledge and post-qualification practical experience in one or more of UK and EU competition or consumer law, subsidy control or regulatory law together with knowledge and appreciation of applicable public law is particularly relevant.  

Please note we are also recruiting for Legal Advisers. If you would like to be considered for the roles of Assistant Legal Director and Legal Adviser, you will need to submit a separate application for each role.

The CMA is fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. It is a priority to make our workforce as diverse as possible, and we welcome applications from under-represented groups, including ethnically diverse people, people with a disability, and people with diverse gender identities.

All CMA staff enjoy generous benefits, including an excellent pension scheme, at least 25 days leave (increasing to 30 over five years), generous maternity/paternity leave provision and a hybrid working model. You can also take advantage of interest-free season ticket loans, a cycle to work scheme, and flexible working options.

We are committed to growing our presence outside of London through the Places for Growth programme. This means that we are actively recruiting lawyers into CMA offices in Belfast, Edinburgh, Manchester and Cardiff, as well as London. CMA case teams are made up of staff across our offices – location is not a factor in the type of work our lawyers do. Like many other organisations, we operate a hybrid working model with a mix of office and home working. We believe this supports us to deliver our best work while allowing the flexibility to maintain balanced and healthy lives. We work at least 40% of our time from our office locations across the UK.

The CMA will be hosting a virtual recruitment event on 6 March between 17.30 – 18.30. Candidates will have the opportunity to find out more about the organisation and the opportunities available. To register for the event, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/legal-services-recruitment-event-tickets-847607114697

Please note that for exceptional international candidates, we may be able to sponsor your right to work, subject to your eligibility to work for the Civil Service. Sponsorship will be considered on a case-by-case basis. 

Please note that the minimum salary will increase upon appointment, as the current advertised salary reflects the 2022/23 salary scales rather than the 2023/24 scales, which are due to be updated shortly.

To find out more about this opportunity and about working for the CMA, please click on the APPLY button. 

Closing date: 11:55pm on 11 March 2024.

The CMA is an accredited Disability Confident Employer. As an equal opportunities employer, we welcome suitably qualified applicants from all backgrounds and recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles.

Salary: £73,512 - £79,408 per annum plus benefits (Please note that the minimum salary will increase upon appointment, as the current advertised salary reflects the 2022/23 salary scales rather than the 2023/24 scales, which are due to be updated shortly.)
Location: Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, London, Manchester
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full time / Part time / Flexible