Legal Manager (Real Estate Team, Legal and Transactions)

Number of positions: Four

Location: National, based in any one of our Sheffield, Darlington, Manchester, Nottingham or Coventry offices. Remote/ homeworkers accepted.

Salary: £47,894 - £55,259 (National) 

Working Pattern: Full time, part-time, flexible, job share or homeworker accepted.

Type of Contract: Permanent.

Brief Description:

Reporting to the Head of the Real Estate Team and the Regional Lead, you will lead on the delivery of legal property support to the Department’s work with open academies and a wide range of capital programmes including Free Schools.

You will need to have a flexible, responsive approach with proven business delivery skills, willing to provide advice, challenge using evidence and develop the most creative solutions to the most demanding problems.  

Role holders will therefore need to add value to their team’s work and be able to cut through the issues to see the solutions that are required to take work forward within the legal and policy framework. They will be able to manage a range of projects and stakeholders with sometimes competing priorities.

Core to all these roles will be critical analytical skills, so not just accepting things at face value but also seeking to question the norm. Individuals will seek feedback, act on it, and pursue their own development and acquisition of knowledge to improve their performance. 

Key responsibilities:

The Legal Manager (Property) role requires specialist experience and qualifications. The key responsibilities for the role are outlined below however duties may vary over time and post holders will need to be adaptable and resilient, ready to undertake a diverse range of tasks.

• Lead on Free Schools/UTCs and Studio School (“Free Schools”) property acquisitions from heads of terms negotiations through to completion, instructing external property agents and legal advisers as necessary. 
• Drafting, reviewing, negotiating and updating template and bespoke property guidance, documents and contracts across the Free Schools and other capital programmes (including identifying the need for new templates).
• Acting as client and managing the services provided by our retained external legal advisers.
• Lead on complex land transaction cases working with a diverse range of stakeholders. Assessing each case from a statutory and land policy perspective before recommending a ‘consent/refusal’ decision to the Secretary of State.
• Provide expert in-house property advice and recommendations to DfE and ESFA colleagues as required across the Free Schools, PSBP and all other capital programmes in respect of general property issues, contract issues and due diligence.
• Apply experience and lessons learnt and assist in the strategic review of programme wide approaches, policies and internal analysis as to potential improvements.
• Work across organisational boundaries to ensure an effective contribution to policy and business delivery. 

The Legal Manager (Property) will be required to lead on the delivery of legal property support to a wide range of capital programmes (Free Schools, PSBP and open Academies).

Qualifications:

• Solicitor or barrister qualified to practice in England and Wales.

Knowledge and Experience:

• Property lawyer with at least three years PQE and experience as lead lawyer on commercial property transactions (i.e. with minimal supervision.)
• Broad commercial property transactional experience in particular acting for acquiring parties and property development experience is an advantage.
• Experience of working with or for the public sector is an advantage as is client side experience

How to apply:

The Civil Service Competency Framework outlines the three high-level leadership behaviours that every civil servant needs to model.

The role holder will need to provide evidence of their skills and experience as well as demonstrate their competency level against the descriptors below with examples of the effective behaviours the role holder should exhibit. These are the essential competencies for the role holder. The behaviours are summarised below and set out in full in the Competency Framework, which is available via the how to apply link.

Competences:

We will assess you against the following competences during the selection process:

• Achieving commercial outcomes;
• Leading and communicating;
• Delivering at pace;
• Making effective decisions;