Senior Solicitor

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

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