Commercial Lawyer (Leeds) vacancies in the Government Legal Department
Information for candidates applying for the Commercial Lawyer vacancies in the Government Legal Department based in Leeds
Headline Information
| Department | Government Legal Department |
| Division | Commercial Law Group |
| Job title | Commercial Lawyer |
| Location | Leeds |
| Salary | Grade 7 - £47,400 to £58,000 (National); Legal Officer - £42,844 (less than 3 years PQE) |
| Application deadline | Midday Monday 23 September 2019 |
Apply
Vacancy details
The Government Legal 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.
The department has more than 14 client-facing advisory teams who provide legal advice on the development, design and implementation of government policies and decisions, draft secondary legislation and work with Parliamentary Counsel on primary legislation. Our cross-cutting expert service groups for Litigation, Employment and Commercial Law provide specialist legal services to a wide range of government departments and public bodies.
We are recruiting for Commercial Lawyers based in Leeds.
We have seven commercial law teams focussing on providing largely non contentious advice to specific departments. They work closely with the departments so feel like proper “in house” roles. Much of the work is on the boundaries of commercial and public law, often at the forefront of major government initiatives. The government draws continuously upon the skills of commercial lawyers to bring to life policies pledged in their election manifestos and elsewhere.
Our commercial lawyers provide a wide range of commercial legal advice, including on
- commercial contracts
- public procurement
- construction
- information technology
- intellectual property
- public law aspects of commercial work/commercial decision making
- grants and state aid.
They draft and advise on every part of the commercial process, from the commercial law implications of a policy, through to designing the appropriate commercial contract, ensuring that projects appropriately manage legal risk, that contracts are managed effectively, and that any disputes are resolved as effectively as possible.
Effective contract and supplier management is essential to extract maximum value and so the commercial lawyers are called upon to advise on handling performance issues and disputes before they reach a formal dispute resolution procedure. Risk management of all types is a very large element of the role of our lawyers.
If a dispute resolution procedure is commenced then commercial lawyers often work alongside litigation lawyers and counsel. Commercial lawyers also play a key role in instructing, working alongside and managing external law firms and counsel where additional and/or specialist advice is required. Commercial lawyers often work closely with their legal colleagues in the advisory law teams in GLD which advise the same department helping to implement policies and advise on commercial legal issues raised.
There is increasing demand for the Group’s services, largely due to the need to drive value from departmental contracts and because of new programmes of purchasing. This increase in demand has led to the need to recruit high calibre, commercial lawyers to help deliver our continuing success. Our Group offers some of the most interesting, varied, complex and high-profile commercial in-house work available anywhere. The work is broad but we do not expect candidates to cover every area when they join us.
Successful candidates can expect to be involved in some of the most high profile, complex and far reaching commercial issues in government.
This post is also available in Manchester.
Contact
For further information about the post and application enquiries, please contact the Recruitment Team or telephone 0845 3000 793 or 0117 923 4417.