Community Care Solicitor – Supervisor or equivalent

Vacancy: Community Care Solicitor – Supervisor or equivalent
Department: Civil Liberties and Human Rights
Location: London (City & East)
Contract: Permanent – Full time
Salary:   Dependent on experience
Application closing date: 14 December 2018

About ITN and the Department:

Our Work: ITN is an award winning leading law firm operating across a number of practice areas. The firm takes pride in its cross-departmental approach to litigation. A number of departments in the firm are recognised as leaders in their respective fields.

Community Care at ITN: ITN successfully secured a Community Care contract in the latest LAA Civil Contract tendering round. Although the department has commenced work, the firm is in the position where it needs to secure a community care supervisor at short notice. We are therefore seeking a solicitor who can help to both establish the department and develop it further. The firm has a number of departments that can feed in to the CC workload including Family, Immigration, Public Law and Civil Liberties and Human Rights.  The firm also has established links with a range of non-governmental organisations, charities and campaign groups. Although the successful candidate will be given full support in developing the department, the candidate will need to be a self-starter who is interested in creating a thriving practice for themselves and the department.

Our People: Our solicitors are known for their fearless and dynamic approach to litigation. We are known for our capacity to take complex and difficult factual challenges and find and apply novel legal solutions to achieve remedies for our client groups.

We are committed to equality and diversity and welcome applications from all sections of the community.

• Overall purpose for this role

• To develop the Community Care Department.
• To assist the firm in achieving its professional and commercial objectives. You will ideally have a good network of contacts within the field, including contacts with referral agencies.

Main duties and responsibilities

• Developing the department’s systems and policies.
• Managing your own caseload under limited supervision.
• Developing and maintaining referral sources.
• Taking all steps from obtaining initial instructions from new clients and arranging funding through to litigating the case in a CPR compliant manner and then billing.
• Providing detailed, high quality advice to the client in the appropriate areas of law in clear and understandable language. 
• At all times, having strict regard to the Solicitors Regulation Authority's Standards of Professional Conduct and Ethics, and in particular to the strict requirement of confidentiality of clients' affairs.

Person Specification Essential

• As a minimum, sufficient experience to satisfy the Legal Competence and Case Involvement elements of the current LAA Community Care Supervisor Standard which can be found on the link below. We will arrange for provision of all training needed to bring suitable candidates up to supervisor status.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/645406/2018-community-care-supervisor-declaration-form.docx

• A proven record of excellence in community care cases.
• A proven record of pursuing community care cases in a range of forums.
• Ability to develop and maintain connections with campaigning and referring organisations relevant to your work
• Knowledge of the Legal Aid scheme and CCMS.
• Proven ability to meet cost targets.
• Commitment to equal opportunities.
• Experience in dealing sensitively with clients and experts, providing solutions and managing difficult situations and conversations.
• Excellent time management skills, demonstrated by ability to organise and prioritise a complex workload and to work to tight deadlines.
• Proven experience of the administration arising at the conclusion of cases whether in terms of dealing with inter partes costs, CFA funded costs, public funding or some other form of funding through to payment of damages and liaising with accounts to clear financial ledgers and to archiving of files.
• Solid experience in using a variety of IT packages (MS Word, Excel, Case Management Systems and Outlook).

Desirable

• Satisfy the current LAA Community Care Supervisor Standard in full
• Sufficient experience of Court of Protection work to fulfil 2018 LAA Standard Civil Contract criteria for supervisors of Contract Work relating to proceedings under the Mental Capacity Act 2005
• Experience in the management of a team or department and supervision of staff
• The ability to speak a community language spoken by our clients
• An interest in developing innovative litigation
• An existing caseload that could be brought to the firm
• Existing proven links with referral organisations and sources
• Interest in and ability to develop links with potential referral organisations
• An interest in developing the practice areas by writing, lecturing and networking through a variety of forums is necessary
• Proven ability to delegate appropriately and to supervise and motivate reporting staff

Please email your CV and a covering letter to Vanessa Wood at recruitment@itnsolicitors.com