Overview
Senior Solicitor
Permanent
Full time
Salary £56,073.00 – 59,688.00
Job Purpose:
To provide legal advice and representation to Warwickshire Police officers and staff on a range of matters, including litigation and advocacy.
You will be responsible for conduct of a range of legal matters, which include
- Civil litigation, predominantly defending claims against the police
- Civil disclosure
- Other litigation/operational advice
Main responsibilities:
- To provide timely and comprehensive legal advice across a wide range of practice areas including civil litigation and operational matters.
- Management of own caseload and court commitments.
- To support and represent the Force at legal hearings including Magistrates, Crown and County Courts (and other Tribunals as required).
- To attend meetings as required, whilst promoting productive working relationships with other teams and departments and outside stakeholders, including external agencies, courts and tribunals and other partners.
- To ensure both yourself and the wider team comply with the In-House Claims Handling Agreement in place with the insurers on civil claims, to specifically ensure reserves and notifications are up to date and accurate and to play a key role in insurance audits to maintain a positive relationship with the insurers.
- To maintain the necessary standards of professional behaviour under the Police Code of Ethics and the SRA/Bar Council and maintaining Continuing Professional Development.
- To undertake other duties commensurate with the nature, level of responsibility and grading of this post, as required.
Special conditions:
The duties of this post :
- Have been designated as ‘Politically Sensitive’ under the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 (as amended).
- Requires travel across the force area and to court, as required.
- May include some exposure to disturbing/unpleasant images or tasks
- Advocacy
Person Specification:
Knowledge:
Essential
- Qualified solicitor with practising certificate for England and Wales or Barrister, with at least 5 years post qualification experience.
- Law Degree
- Rights of Audience
- Knowledge of a range of legal disciplines to include –
- Civil litigation: including significant knowledge and experience in the conduct and management of public liability claims (claims for unlawful arrest and false imprisonment, assault/battery, malicious prosecution, misfeasance, data breach, Human Rights and so on), and of the Civil Procedure Rules.
- General litigation
- Police operational law
Desirable
- Civil Preventative Orders (e.g. SHPO, SRO, Closure Orders, Stalking Protection Orders)
- Some criminal law,
- Information Management
- Police Conduct Regulations
- Judicial Review
Experience:
- Significant experience of advising on a wide range of legal matters;
- Demonstrable experience of advocacy skills
- Experience of problem solving;
- Experience of managing and prioritising own caseload within a legal team environment
Key Skills:
- Exceptional communication and influencing/negotiating skills, including strong advocacy and presentation skills;
- Able to deal with conflict to reach a satisfactory resolution while maintaining strong working relationships
- Ability to work calmly and professionally under pressure and to tight deadlines, demonstrating a flexible and agile approach;
- Ability to use own initiative and work largely unsupervised;
- Excellent problem solving and decision making skills and demonstrable professional judgement:
- Ability to mentor and develop others within the team
- Competent in the use of IT including Microsoft packages