About the role
Are you an experienced Child Care Lawyer looking to expand your skills, progress your career and step into a leadership role? We are creating a brand new in-house Legal Team to support the Northamptonshire Children’s Trust. Join the existing Legal Team at West Northants Council, one of the newest and the fourth biggest Unitary Council in England.
What will you be doing?
As Principal Child Care Lawyer you will sit within our People legal team, supporting the Head of Legal (People) in the management of the team and working collaboratively with our Officers and elected Members in the work they undertake.
You will be our technical specialist with duties including:
- Managing a caseload of child protection cases.
- Advising clients, including elected members and senior officers.
- Advising on policy, strategy and procedure relating to Child Care issues.
- Building highly effective working relationships with clients.
- Supervising and delivering training to a dedicated legal team.
- To provide training to clients where required.
Whilst experience of advising on Child Care Law is essential, local government experience is not. What’s more important is a passion for delivering an excellent legal service, a desire to help shape and deliver an exemplar local authority legal service and a drive to progress and achieve your own ambition.
About 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 have mentoring, buddying, coaching, training and many other opportunities available to assist and develop you.
We will also consider any version of flexible working you can come up with and encourage those looking to change sector or return to work after a career break to apply.
For more information please contact Julia Rickards, Head of Legal (People) on 07585 405339 for a confidential discussion.
Our benefits
You can also see our full list of employee benefits on our careers site here: Why you should work for us | West Northamptonshire Council.
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.
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.
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