Overview
Legal Counsel – Strand, London, WC2R 2LS
About us:
King’s College London is an internationally renowned university delivering exceptional education and world-leading research. King’s has nearly 33,000 students from 190 countries, and is consistently ranked as one of the top 30 universities in the world (Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2025).
King’s is a multi-faculty institution, providing high-quality teaching, research and innovation across the sciences, humanities, medicine, law, dentistry, and social sciences. It’s the largest centre for the education of healthcare professionals in Europe, and is home to five Medical Research Council Centres spread across its three teaching hospitals.
Working closely with the Chair of Council, Lord Stevens of Birmingham, and the Vice-Chancellor & President, Professor Shitij Kapur, the University Secretary & Director of Assurance, Dr Sinéad Critchley, leads the Office of the Chairman and College Secretariat (OCCS). The Office comprises three key teams: Governance, Legal Services, and Audit and Assurance, each with a senior management lead. Collectively, OCCS is responsible for the effective running of governance across King’s, serving Council and its committees, supporting the Chair and Vice-Chancellor & President as a trusted advisor and a link between the non-executive and executive functions of the University, building assurance and compliance networks across King’s, supporting and contributing to strategic direction and ensuring compliance across a wide range of statutory, regulatory and policy requirements. Through the legal services team, OCCS oversees relevant activities governed by European/international legislation and contracts as well as specific agreements with partner establishments.
The Legal Services team consists of the General Counsel & Director of Legal Services and two Legal Counsel. The team provides legal advice to the whole College, manages the work and instructions of our external panel of law firms and oversees the College’s legal spend. The team is looking to further expand and is now recruiting a third Legal Counsel position.
About the role:
The Legal Counsel will be responsible for providing high quality, considered and pragmatic legal advice across a diverse range of matters. However they will have a specific focus on advising on student litigation matters, education contracts, academic partnerships, dispute management and regulatory compliance, as well as delivering training and guidance materials to staff.
Working with staff at all levels, the role holder will manage their own challenging and varied caseload of legal matters with minimal supervision.
The Legal Counsel will report to the General Counsel and Director of Legal Services and support the other Legal Counsel in the continued development of a legal team recognised for delivering excellent advice and support for the College.
This is a full time role (35 hours per week), and you will be offered an indefinite contract.
About you:
To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:
Essential criteria
- Qualified to practice as a solicitor or barrister in England and Wales.
- Post qualification experience in a broad range of areas of law such as education, contract, charity, and intellectual property law but with a particular specialism in education, or consumer law.
- Experience and in-depth knowledge of the Equality Act.
- A well-developed understanding of legal issues relating to education, research, enterprise and professional services in a Higher Education context.
- Highly developed and accurate legal skills including drafting complex legal documents, researching, negotiation, advocacy and interviewing.
- Enthusiasm and ability to liaise effectively with internal and external clients, exploring their respective needs, adapting the service, and setting expectations.
- A self-motivated approach to planning and prioritising workloads with good organisational and time management skills.
- Demonstrable team working experience, including ability and willingness to take on new tasks in unfamiliar areas and to react confidently and rapidly to emerging issues.
Desirable criteria
- Experience working as education solicitor, responding to complaints and appeals, drafting pre action correspondence and court documentation, liaising with OIA and OfS.
- In depth understanding of the legal and regulatory environment relating to the higher education sector.
- Experience working in an in-house team or university in house team.
Downloading a copy of our Job Description
Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the page. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.
