About the job Summary

The Government Legal Department (GLD) is looking for senior commercial transaction lawyers to lead, manage, develop and supervise the work of other lawyers within our Commercial Law Group (CLGp). These are key leadership roles and we can offer a challenging and exciting career.

Commercial lawyers within GLD provide legal advice to government departments and public bodies on some of the most important and interesting projects and other commercial transactions in the country which are frequently scrutinised in Parliament and the media. Our clients are government departments such as the Home Office, the Department for International Trade, Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Health and Social Care, the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Justice, to name just a few. We offer broad and unrivalled career opportunities within CLGp and as part of wider GLD.

We would be delighted to receive applications from talented and motivated senior commercial and contract lawyers for these roles. Whatever your legal career to date, if you are currently working for the GLD or looking to ‘do something different’, CLGp is a supportive and collegiate place to work offering complex and challenging projects on matters of national importance.

Job description

These vacancies are for permanent roles in CLGp, across our national based teams in central London, Leeds, Croydon and Bristol. We have roles that can be worked full-time, part-time or as part of a job share. For certain roles, some travel may be required. Our salary range for Grade 6 lawyers is £63,734- £75,200 (central London) and £60,532 - £71,000 (national). There is potential to assess starting salaries based on experience and specialist skills. CLGp is a dynamic and specialist commercial legal service, which was launched in June 2014, to create for the first time, a single expert source of commercial legal advice across government.

LOCATION
Candidates may be based in any GLD national office, which are in central London, Leeds (our new office - Wellington Place Government hub), Bristol and Croydon. Some of our London teams are co-located in departmental client’s offices. GLD operates a hybrid work model – office based and working from home – you will be able to work from home for up to 60% of your contracted hours, spending the remainder of your time in your contracted location, subject to business needs

THE DEPARTMENT
GLD is the largest provider of legal services across government, working with all the main Whitehall departments. From roads to rivers, and health to human rights, our work touches on most aspects of public life.
GLD has, at its core, client-facing advisory teams who provide legal advice across government on the development, design and implementation of government policies and decisions, draft secondary legislation and work with Parliamentary Counsel on primary legislation. In addition, we provide specialist and expert legal support in litigation, employment and commercial law to a wide range of government departments and public bodies.
GLD’s vision is to be an outstanding legal organisation, committed to the highest standards of service and professionalism and also a brilliant place to work where we can all thrive and fulfil our potential.

OUR CAREER OFFER
While previous experience or knowledge may be relevant to some vacancies, government work is likely to involve a rapid learning curve to acquire legal skills and knowledge not required in private practice. Strong intellectual and analytical skills are important. We will provide support to help you acquire the necessary expertise and have a thriving in-house training programme.
GLD encourages its people to develop their skills and provides opportunities to move between advisory, litigation, employment and commercial law services during their careers, should they wish to do so.

THE COMMERCIAL LAW GROUP
CLGp is a dynamic and specialist commercial legal service, which was launched in June 2014, to create for the first time, a single expert source of commercial legal advice across government.
Whilst our legal work is often novel and challenging, CLGp is friendly and welcoming, with a strong culture of collaborating and supporting one another. Feedback from our lawyers taking part in the most recent Civil Service People Survey demonstrates that staff can rely upon each other to help when things get difficult, are treated fairly at work and are proud to work for CLGp and GLD.
There are approximately 190 lawyers in CLGp, led by Justinia Lewis, our Legal Director. The Group is divided into smaller teams, ranging in size from 8 to 33 lawyers with all-encompassing support from our Business Management Team. CLGp currently has 6 legal teams providing commercial law support to a range of government departments as well as our litigation team that conducts commercial litigation and provides dispute resolution services to central government. We also have a Property Hub, which advises on specialist property matters. Our clients include:
• Home Office
• Department for Education
• Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
• Department for Work and Pensions
• Ministry of Justice
• Department of Health and Social Care
• Cabinet Office
• Department for International Trade
• Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
• Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy
• Crown Commercial Service
• Government Digital Service
• Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
• HM Treasury
• Ministry of Defence
• Department for Transport
• Intellectual Property Office
• Arm’s Length Bodies and Executive Agencies such as the Legal Aid Agency
There is increasing demand for CLGp services, largely due to new policy areas and government priorities proposing new ways of delivering services, the need to drive value from departmental contracts and new purchasing requirements across government. CLGp offers some of the most interesting, varied, complex and high-profile commercial in-house work available here in the UK.
We have been at the forefront of supporting commercial efforts to meet the challenges of Covid19 and EU Exit, as well as supporting a range of other projects from supporting COP26 and international expos to a new legal aid scheme, future farming, prison building, refugee accommodation, disputes around cross-channel freight capacity, high value contract disputes relating to Covid19 PPE and Testing, construction and IT/telecoms and the KickStart scheme for 16-24 year olds.
The work is broad but we do not expect candidates to cover every area when they join us. However, successful candidates can expect to play a key role in delivering some of the most high profile, complex and far reaching commercial/litigation projects in government.
Due to the breadth of work CLGp carries out, as well as the number of government departments we support, we pride ourselves on our understanding of the wider public sector context. All of our people will have a good practical working understanding of commercial law and public procurement law principles, with expertise being found in these areas over time.
One of our senior commercial lawyers had this to say about CLGp: “Since joining GLD in September 2019, I have been involved in lots of high profile and important work for various government departments. It is a role that really does deliver on the variety of commercial work and ‘coal face’ exposure to projects at the forefront of government policy. As a senior lawyer (G6), and the manager of a legal team, I am also able to play a leading role in shaping our commercial legal services for key clients. Along with our business management and knowledge management colleagues, I feel that I am part of a really supportive network of professionals. Outside of legal work, there are loads of initiatives and groups to get involved with where you can develop managerial, leadership and other skills, gain wider experience and contribute to GLD’s corporate and cultural objectives.”

Responsibilities

Senior commercial lawyers lead other commercial lawyers and support Deputy Directors in the delivery of commercial legal services to large Government Departments and Arm’s Length Bodies.

If successful, you will lead, manage, develop and supervise the work of other lawyers within your team. You will develop strategies, and be responsible for delivering quality legal advice, on a range of complex and challenging projects to meet key deadlines. You will need to be comfortable working at pace and exercising judgment in relation to matters of national importance. You will be expected to role model sound professional skills and to provide strong professional leadership, helping to build capability in the organisation in line with corporate objectives.
You will be expected to demonstrate strong communication and leadership skills as well as strong skills of legal and strategic analysis, sound judgement, pragmatism and pro-activity. You are able to command the confidence of senior clients and ministers, together with other partners and stakeholders. You will also be expected to make a valuable contribution to the wider team and the department as a whole through playing a proactive role on matters such as knowledge management, training, projects and other corporate opportunities that demonstrate GLD Values.

As a senior lawyer within CLGp, you may be required to provide specialist commercial advice across a wide range of areas including:
- public procurement
- contract drafting, interpretation and management
- grant agreements
- subsidies
- IP and branding issues
- data use and protection
- other bespoke commercial arrangements.

Regardless of your legal career to date, Government work is likely to involve a rapid learning curve to acquire legal skills and knowledge specific to GLD. Strong intellectual and analytical skills are important. We will provide support to help you acquire the necessary expertise and we have a thriving CPD-accredited in-house training programme.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing
• Managing a Quality Service
• Working Together

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• On the day of your interview, you will be asked to complete a written exercise under timed conditions in advance of attending your interview. The written exercise will assess Legal Professional Skills.

Benefits

• Learning and development tailored to your role
•An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension

Things you need to know Security

Successful candidates must pass a disclosure and barring security check.

People working with government assets must complete basic personnel security standard checks.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles, and will assess your Behaviours and Technical skills.

Essential Criteria
Please see below. At sift stage you will be assessed on Motivational Fit, Behaviour (Leadership) and Legal Professional Skills criteria. At interview stage you will be assessed on Motivational Fit, Behaviours (Leadership, Communicating and Influencing, Managing a Quality Service and Working Together) and Legal Professional Skills.

Motivational Fit:
• your motivation to join CLGp and how you feel you will contribute effectively to a leadership role with GLD
• an understanding of the Government and wider public sector context
• an understanding of the role of senior lawyers and senior leaders in government

Legal Professional Skills:

• demonstrable commercial and contract law experience
• reliable legal judgement, analysis and appreciation of legal risk and the confidence to give persuasive, balanced and strong risk based advice.
• able to think strategically and creatively, see legal issues in their wider context and advise accordingly.


Behaviour: Leadership
• Promote diversity, inclusion and equality of opportunity, respecting difference and external experience
• Welcome and respond to views and challenges from others, despite any conflicting pressures to ignore or give in to them
• Stand by, promote or defend own and team’s actions and decisions where needed
• Seek out shared interests beyond own area of responsibility, understanding the extent of the impact actions have on the organisation
• Inspire and motivate teams to be fully engaged in their work and dedicated to their role.

Behaviour: Communicating and Influencing
• Communicate with others in a clear, honest and enthusiastic way in order to build trust
• Explain complex issues in a way that is easy to understand
• Take into account people’s individual needs
• Deliver difficult messages with clarity and sensitivity, being persuasive when required
• Consider the impact of the language used
• Remain open-minded and impartial in discussions, whilst respecting the diverse interests and opinions of others
• Monitor the effectiveness of own and team communications and take action to improve where necessary

Behaviour: Managing a Quality Service
• Demonstrate positive customer service by understanding the complexity and diversity of customer needs and expectations
• Make clear, practical and manageable plans for service delivery
• Ensure adherence to legal, regulatory and security requirements in service delivery
• Proactively manage risks and identify solutions
• Establish how the business area compares to industry best practice
• Create regular opportunities for colleagues, stakeholders, delivery partners and customers to help improve the quality of service.

Behaviour: Working Together
• Actively build and maintain a network of colleagues and contacts to achieve progress on shared objectives
• Challenge assumptions while being willing to compromise if beneficial to progress
• Build strong interpersonal relationships and show genuine care for colleagues.
• Ensure consideration and support for the wellbeing of yourself and individuals throughout the team
• Understand the varying needs of the team to ensure they are supported and their experiences are utilised
• Create an inclusive working environment where all opinions and challenges are taken into account and bullying, harassment and discrimination are unacceptable
• Remain available and approachable to all colleagues and be receptive to new ideas.

Desirable Criteria
Legal Professional Skills
• A good working knowledge of and experience of public procurement issues is strongly desirable
• An ability to lead, and experience of, the negotiation of draft commercial contracts
• An understanding of public law
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

Communicating and Influencing
Leadership
Managing a Quality Service
Working Together
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

On the day of your interview, you will be asked to complete a written exercise under timed conditions in advance of attending your interview. The written exercise will assess Legal Professional Skills.

This vacancy is using Success Profiles, and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths, Experience and Technical skills.
To apply for this position, candidates are asked to submit a personal statement answering the following question:

Why are you pursuing a Grade 6 Senior Commercial Lawyer role within the Commercial Law Group at this stage in your career?

• A form of words addressing the Legal Professional Skills and Behaviour: Leadership (maximum 850 words)
and Motivational Fit (maximum 400 words).

• Your employment history and experience as required through the application process.

• Confirmation of having achieved a minimum of a 2:1 degree in your first degree (in any subject). Where an
applicant holds an overseas degree this should be equivalent to 2:1.

Applicants who do not have a 2:1 degree will be considered where satisfactory evidence of high level academic and/or professional achievement is provided.

We are serious about getting people with the right motivation and skills to be successful in CLGp.

Interview

Should you be successful in being invited to interview, you will be assessed on your performance in all essential criteria as listed below, alongside strength-based questions.

• Legal Professional Skills
• Motivational Fit
• Behaviour: Leadership
• Behaviour: Communicating and Influencing
• Behaviour: Managing a quality service
• Behaviour: Working Together


On the day of your interview, you will be asked to complete a written exercise under timed conditions in advance of attending your interview. The written exercise will assess Legal Professional Skills.

You will then be asked to present your response to the interview panel. Your presentation will be assessed against Communicating and Influencing and Managing a Quality Service. Any follow up questions will assess Legal Professional Skills.

Behaviours and Motivational Fit will be tested through situational and strength based questions.

The interview will comprise three different stages:- as each stage has a different focus, as you move from stage to stage, the style of the interview may change. The three stages are:

1. Written exercise, presentation and follow up questions;
2. Scenario-based questions on possible situations that you might encounter;
3. Strength-based questions

The Government Legal Department is committed to encouraging a diverse range of candidates to apply and operates a policy of diverse interview panels. This means that all interview panels will have either minority ethnic representation or disability representation, in addition to being mixed-gender. GLD endeavours to meet this requirement 100% of the time, but please note that on occasion, this may not be possible.

We appoint in strict order of merit. If you meet the minimum criteria for this position but are not successful in obtaining a Grade 6 Senior Lawyer role because the number of successful candidates after interview exceeds the number of available vacancies, we may hold a reserve list.

For further information about Civil Service recruitment processes and Success profiles, please visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/success-profiles

For further information about the role please click on the apply button where you will be redirected to full information regarding this role.