Vacancies

Lawyer / Senior Paralegal (Contracts)

Please Note: The application deadline for this job has now passed.

About the role

Would you like to join an authority where you can progress your legal career and be supported in excelling professionally? If so, join the new Legal Team at West Northants Council, one of the newest and the fourth biggest Unitary Councils in England. We are continuing the growth of our new legal service with the addition of a lawyer/senior paralegal team member to sit within the Corporate area, specifically in the contracts team.

What will you be doing?

Your duties will involve:

Assisting Senior Lawyers, the Principal Lawyer, and the Head of Legal in all contracts and procurement-related case work and maintaining your own caseload
Working alongside the procurement team to assist a variety of in-house client departments with their contracts for goods and services
Utilizing knowledge of frameworks, call-off contracts, bespoke drafting, and concession contracts
Handling public health-related contracts and grant funding agreements
Advising on subsidy control
Conducting legal research
Advising clients on general contractual matters
Assisting in the training and supervision of Legal Assistants as may be required

About you

If you have experience in the field of commercial contracts and procurement matters, a passion for delivering excellent legal services, and want to help shape and deliver an exemplar local authority legal service, we want to hear from you.

West Northants is a great place to work. With a focus on career development, wellbeing, flexibility, and support, this is an opportunity for you to take the next step on your career journey in a supported environment. We offer mentoring, coaching, training, and many other opportunities to assist and develop you, ensuring your success in the role and your ongoing progression and success within the Council. We also consider a variety of flexible working arrangements, and as local government experience is not essential, we encourage those looking to change sectors or return to work after a career break to apply.

For more information, contact Nicki Agalamanyi, Head of Legal (Corporate), on 07901 931853 for a confidential discussion.

Our benefits

We offer a wide range of benefits to our employees, these include:

Generous annual leave entitlement starting at 28 days annual leave per year, 29 days for senior managers (pro rata, depending on how many hours per week you work), plus bank holidays. An additional 5 days, linked to continuous service, and ability to purchase up to 6 weeks additional leave per year.
Cycle to Work scheme.
Local Government Pension Scheme plus immediate life cover (3 times your annual salary from day one) and ill-health protection.
Employee discounts with local and national retailers, days out, finance, health and beauty, travel and eating out plus lots more.
Car Lease scheme
Payment of professional subscription / membership - If your job description requires that you are registered with or are a member of a professional body, WNC will pay for your professional subscription or membership fees.
Employee Assistance Programme - We have an employee support programme run by Health Assured, an independent, external organisation. Health Assured is available for you and your immediate family members, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and includes telephone counselling, legal advice, bereavement support and medical information.
Ongoing training and development opportunities.
A variety of flexible working options to support your work/life balance, including full or part time, term time, 9-day fortnight, etc. (subject to business needs).
Our West Ways of Working – We want our workforce to thrive, and we equip our employees with the right technology to support hybrid and collaborative working, on or off site, depending on the role.
Making a difference - If you want to use your skills and experience with an organisation that are genuinely invested in making a difference, are committed to improving people's lives, and whose success has a direct impact on the wellbeing of your family, friends and people in your local area, then West Northamptonshire Council is the place for you.

About us

At West Northants Council, it’s about our people. People who thrive with ambition, bubble with new ideas, demand better ways of working, caring about every detail, and who never shy away from a challenge. Our culture is a gateway for new experiences. A place to forge new opportunities. To empower you in your career and unite you with like-minded people.

Our vision is ‘to make West Northants a great place to live, work, visit and thrive’. We truly stand by this and work hard every day to make this a reality. Our corporate values, THRIVE, stand for: Trust, High Performance, Respect, Innovate and Empower, they underpin everything we do and how we deliver services.

Hear more from our Chief Executive, Anna Earnshaw, about what it's like to work at West Northants Council https://youtu.be/lV0EfeUF4aU

We are committed to ensuring diversity, equality, equity, and inclusion is woven into the fabric of WNC and everything we do, to enable all colleagues to develop and maximize their full potential.  We are a disability confident employer, a member of the Armed Forces Covenant, and a Care Leaver Covenant partner

The following film was created by us to communicate our intentions - watch WNC colleagues explain what DEI means to us.

If you need additional support or reasonable adjustments during the application process, including needing the job description in another format or language, please email careers@westnorthants.gov.uk for support.

West Northants Council, where careers thrive.