Job Description

A lovely opportunity to work for a firm as a Care Solicitor - you will need to have at least at least one year's experience of care work but ideally should have three year's experience of care work and be on the Children Panel or working towards Panel membership.

Flexibility for the right candidate in terms of hours/working at home.

Experience of advocacy and keen to continue and increase expertise in this area

The salary will reflect experience so more for a Panel member and longer experience but we will offer a competitive salary for the right person

Main Duties of the role:
1. To be responsible for progressing a caseload of care work for parents and other parties and if on the Children Panel, for children.

2. To undertake advocacy for your cases as appropriate and for other solicitor's cases as and when required

3. To take on some non care casework and advocacy as and when appropriate e.g. injunctions, adoption work

4. To ensure your cases have appropriate public funding and all required information on the file to enable the case to be billed at the end of the case promptly through liaison with internal and external costs draftsman/accounts staff.

5. To work as part of the care team in particular at the Medway office contributing to the work of the team to ensure high quality client care for clients


Duties:
1. All the tasks required to start a new case e.g. taking client's instructions whether at court or in the office, confirming instructions in first letter to client, obtaining public funding, opening file, ensuring conflict check and risk assessment obtained (administrator/paralegal to assist in administration of setting up new files)

2. Using the case management scheme to progress the file and ensure client is kept up to date with progress of a case. Ensure that the administration of the case is kept up to date e.g time recording, correct invoices retained, high cost case plans prepared etc.

3. Attending relevant external meetings e.g. pre proceeding meetings and any home and school visits when representing children.

4. Representing clients at court in the full range of interim and final hearings whether contested or not, . To include the preparation of position statements or skeleton arguments as required.

5. Ensuring that all administration in relation to hearings and the progress of the case is undertaken accurately and promptly including time recording, attendance notes, diary management and maintenance, billing and funding requirements, in particular cost limitations etc.

6. To work productively with support staff at Medway to ensure that files are compliant with firm and Lexcel guidelines and that administrative tasks are completed promptly e.g. delegating tasks as appropriate, ensuring support staff are familiar with the tasks required, maintaining good communication with support staff.

7. To spend time at the end of a case preparing the file for billing and answering any queries from costs draftsman or internal accounts staff promptly to enable the file to be billed promptly.

8. To attend team meetings at Medway and contribute actively to the smooth running of the service provided. To work as a team in covering advocacy and casework as and when required.

9. To provide high quality client care in all cases to include keeping client regularly informed and updated, responding promptly to communication from client, explaining complex legal issues and orders in user friendly language when required, managing complaints promptly and according to the firm's policy.

10. To attend supervision meetings with the Head of Medway as and when required and to prepare for supervision to enable meetings are productive.

Salary: £38,000

If you feel this job might be of interested we would love to hear from you.

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