Team Senior Lawyer - Education and SEND

Careersatstaffordshire; England; On-site; GBP 100,000 - 125,000; Full time

Job summary

A progressive local authority is seeking a qualified Chartered Legal Executive, Solicitor, or Barrister to join its Legal Services team. The role involves providing policy advice on Education law and managing client files while supporting efficient services to the educational sector. The ideal candidate will possess strong communication skills, meticulous attention to detail, and effective time management abilities. The authority values work-life balance and offers a comprehensive benefits package, including flexible working options.

Benefits

Generous holiday entitlement

Flexible working options

Local government pension scheme

Employee travel discounts

Qualifications

• Comprehensive understanding of Education law.
• In-depth understanding of public sector work.
• Ability to communicate clearly and effectively.

Responsibilities

• Provide policy advice and representation in SEND matters.
• Ensure efficient delivery of the Schools Advice Service.
• Manage client files per Lexcel requirements.

Skills

Understanding of Education law

Effective communication

Attention to detail

Time management

Delegation skills

Education

Chartered Legal Executive, Solicitor or Barrister qualification

Job description

Staffordshire County Council is a modern, progressive, and forward-thinking authority that is ambitious and empowers its employees to be courageous and innovative in their approach.

Staffordshire Legal Services is a large in-house corporate legal team, offering a significant breadth of experience and expertise. We support and retain our lawyers, trainees and support staff by offering a wide variety of work, an extensive benefits package and offering training and mentoring to aid progression. We want everyone to enjoy their work, feel challenged and appreciated for what they do, and positively contribute to making a difference to the lives of the people of Staffordshire. People are often unaware that Legal Services support the Council to fulfil every function when delivering its agenda and priorities, in addition to the Staffordshire pension fund, and a wide range of external clients. This keeps the work interesting, challenging and often high value and high profile.

We genuinely recognise the benefit of achieving the right work life balance and our extensive package of benefits support this. Lots of organisations offer this however our staff survey reliably informs us that our work ethos truly delivers this. Our package includes a generous holiday entitlement, increasing significantly with service, and an additional annual leave purchase scheme.

Flexible and term time only working, agile working, employee travel and entertainment discounts, a local government pension scheme, optional car lease scheme and a staff parking discount scheme. We also offer family friendly policies such as maternity, adoption, paternity, and parental leave.

These will include delivering support in relation to Education matters, as follows:-

• Policy advice and representation in respect of SEND including responding to judicial review letters and applications. Expertise in SEND work is a significant part of this role.
• Ensuring the efficient delivery of a Schools Advice Service and all that entails
• Giving advice in relation to a full range of often complex Local Authority statutory education functions
• Managing client files in accordance with Lexcel requirements and supervising other members of the team

We are looking for you to be a qualified Chartered Legal Executive (with practice/advocacy rights), Solicitor or Barrister with:

• A comprehensive understanding of Education law
• An in-depth understanding of the work done by this public sector, although previous local government experience is not essential
• An ability to clearly, confidently and effectively communicate
• Meticulous attention to detail
• Effective time management, prioritisation skills and an ability to work under the demands of competing pressures
• An ability to delegate work in order to generate capacity

“We’re happy to talk flexible working”

Interviews will take place on 14th January 2026.

Our Recruitment Process: We anonymise applications during shortlisting to ensure only relevant information is considered. Please complete your application fully, especially the supporting statement, to highlight what you’ll bring to the role.