Lawyer / Solicitor / In-House Legal Counsel / Property Background

Property Lawyer / Solicitor who is fully qualified to enable practice at Legal Executive/CILEx fellow/Legal Counsel level, with experience in practice (in-house and/or private), a strong property/housing background and clear analytical skills is required to join our Governance & Compliance team at A2Dominion based in Ealing, West London.

This role is known within the organisation as an In-House Legal Counsel.

SALARY: £55,075 - £63,771 per annum + Generous Benefits (see below)

LOCATION: Hybrid working – partly from the office in Ealing (W5) and partly from home (typically Monday is the team day in the office)

JOB TYPE: Full-Time, Permanent

WORKING HOURS: 35 hours per week, Monday to Friday

JOB OVERVIEW

We have a fantastic new job opportunity for a Property Lawyer / Solicitor who is fully qualified to enable practice at Legal Executive/CILEx fellow/Legal Counsel level, with experience in practice (in-house and/or private), a strong property/housing background and clear analytical skills.

Working as the Property Lawyer / Solicitor you will be a competent housing management lawyer able to work without supervision, and with a love of the law and zest for ensuring that clients’ properties are fit for purpose and inhabited by those entitled to be doing so.

To be successful in this role as Property Lawyer / Solicitor, you will be a qualified lawyer with a right to practice in England and Wales.

About the legal team

The Legal Team is a high achieving in-house legal team providing litigation and transactional property legal services. As an entrepreneurial department and team, they are constantly looking at how they can add value and improve the services provided so that it can reinvest back into its social purpose.

They also support professional and personal development, and many team members have been promoted into their roles and supported to qualification. It is because of this success that they now have this opportunity in the team, owing to team members moving on to new roles consisting of promotions and new areas of law.

The litigation team deals with all areas of housing management including leasehold, carried out ASB and possession and other litigation, and currently, there is a disrepair focus. The team is inclusive and diverse, and work well together. They are looking for people who can enhance their offering, are team-spirited, and those who maintain an interest in what is happening in law.

DUTIES

Your duties as a Property Lawyer / Solicitor will include:

Departmental

1. Provide specialist legal advice and carry out legal work on behalf of the in-house client.
2. Manage own files from inception to completion.
3. Take client instructions, and provide legal advice both orally and in writing, and client care/case management generally.
4. Contribute to the drafting of policy, process and technical guidance on legal issues.
5. Prepare and deliver in-house training in your area of expertise.
6. Be a trusted business partner, be entrepreneurial, facilitative, commercial and solutions-focused.
7. Deliver an excellent service to customers, stakeholders and team members by building strong relationships with colleagues and clients across all business areas.
8. Manage any work sent out to external legal framework provider and comply with the process of engaging such work/incurring such costs.
9. Forecast and capture expenditure accurately, comply with policy before incurring liability for disbursements, and recover such costs whenever possible.

Litigation sub-team

1. Conduct cross tenure legal work and advocacy (as necessary) on all aspects of housing and property management (and in particular housing management), with the primary aim of providing early cost-effective solutions without recourse to litigation where possible.
2. Draft full suite of legal documentation as necessary, including (but not limited to) court applications, pleadings, statements of case/defences, witness statements, settlement agreements, instructions and briefs to counsel, instructions to experts, other legal documents and correspondence and all follow up as required.
3. Act on client instructions and in particular, negotiate settlements in accordance with their requirements.
4. Prepare cases for taking to courts and tribunals and ADR, diarising key dates in accordance with departmental requirements, and comply with all deadlines set by the relevant forum.

CANDIDATE REQUIREMENTS

As the Property Lawyer / Solicitor you will have the following:

1. Educated to degree level or equivalent with relevant post-graduate qualification to enable practice at solicitor/CILEx fellow level.
2. A qualified lawyer (solicitor or CILEx fellow equivalent) with experience in practice – in-house and/or private practice.
3. A strong property background with good working knowledge of all legal tenures, in particular those relating to social housing, Landlord and Tenant.
4. Clear analytical skills, with the ability to process large amounts of information into effective legal proceedings.
5. Excellent oral and written communication skills, a confident negotiator, with an ability to influence at all levels and explain and put complex legal and technical terms into practical workable solutions.

BENEFITS

1. 25 days’ holiday (Plus Bank Holidays) increasing up to 28 days with 3 years of service.
2. Up to 8% contributory pension.
3. Flexible working.
4. Investment in your learning and development.
5. Generous annual allowance of up to £300 to use towards health and lifestyle benefits for both you and your family.
6. Cycle to Work Scheme whereby employees have access to cycling equipment throughout the year and can pay via monthly salary deductions.

The organisation recognises that some people will only apply for a role if they meet 100% of role requirements. If this sounds like you, they’d still encourage you to apply should you not feel you meet the criteria 100%.

NO AGENCIES PLEASE

APPLY TODAY…

By submitting your job application to us you are hereby giving us your express consent to submit your details to our Client for this purpose.

JOB REF: AWDO-P12861

This job is being advertised by AWD online on behalf of a2dominion Group Ltd.