Senior Lawyer (Property & Planning)

About Us:
Bursting with culture, energy, and opportunity, the London Borough of Waltham Forest is a fantastic and exciting place to work. 

We are a highly ambitious borough. Driven by culture and the innate creativity of our residents, we have developed new and innovative ways to build our communities. Our Council is relentlessly resident-focused, insight-led, digitally driven and commercially minded; a Council focused on meeting the needs of our existing and future residents. 

London Borough of Waltham Forest is one of the Mayor of London’s Good Work Standard employers. This accreditation is a proof of our commitment to creating a healthy, fair and inclusive workplace. This includes fair pay and conditions, workplace well-being, skills and progression and diversity and recruitment.

About the role:
Waltham Forest has a vision to be ‘a more equal borough, where everyone can make the most of their strengths to live the life they want to lead’, as set out in our Mission Waltham Forest. Waltham Forest Legal Services sits at the heart of the authority, is Lexcel accredited and delivers excellent and efficient legal support to all services in the Council.
We are looking to recruit a Senior Lawyer (Commercial) who is a highly experienced property and conveyancing specialist.  You will handle a varied caseload of commercial property and residential property transactions, including complex and high-risk cases. You will provide expert and proactive strategic and operational legal advice to a variety of audiences clearly and persuasively. You will have excellent communication skills and drafting skills.
As the senior property law specialist in the Planning and Property team within Commercial Law you will also provide professional support for junior members of the team and work collaboratively with colleagues.  
In addition to legal experience you will have a ‘can-do’ attitude together with the commercial acumen and skills to work side by side with the clients to achieve their objectives. As a Senior Lawyer working in local government you will exercise an important influence on good governance and high standards of conduct across the Commercial Law team and the Council. You will demonstrate high levels of professional skill, knowledge and judgement to contribute to the excellent standards of service we deliver to our clients.
You will support Legal Services by complying with all practice management requirements including case management, time recording, Lexcel standards, all policies and procedures and ensure the effective use of the ICT systems.

Key Responsibilities: 

• Ensure the team provides an effective, high quality and cost effective legal service within the area of specialism, meeting the client’s needs

• Provide advice on and conduct a specialist caseload which includes complex or sensitive issues on matters arising across the whole range of issues falling to be dealt with by the team 

• Ensure effective working relationships and good relations with clients, external bodies and stakeholders

Qualifications and Requirements:
Solicitor or Barrister, fully qualified to practise in England and Wales and who currently has or who is immediately able to obtain a practising certificate

Terms and conditions:
The below terms and conditions apply to this role: 

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

Equal Opportunity Employer:
Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both, service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is proud of its rich mix of communities and as the largest employer in the area, it works hard to respond to the changing needs of its population. We use our statutory duties on race, gender and disability equality and best practice in respect of age, faith and sexual orientation to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Council is committed to meeting its 4 equality objectives: - Promoting equality of opportunity - Opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage - Ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels. - Providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent Services to all. Respecting Diversity is a core Council value. 

To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy. 

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 or feel free to discuss this during your interview. 

Closing date: 5 July 2024
Proposed Interview date: w/c 15 July 2024
For further information about the role or to apply, please click on the 'Enquire/Apply' button below.