Senior Advocate

Working in local government is a highly satisfying and rewarding experience in so many ways, and you will enjoy an excellent range of benefits at Derbyshire County Council.

We are looking for a Senior Advocate to join our expanding and successful child protection litigation team in Legal Services. You will be joining an established team of over 30 Lawyers, Legal Assistants and Business Support Officers and you will provide an in-house advocacy service in respect of child protection cases, representing the Council in all levels of the Family Court.

You will conduct the advocacy element of child protection proceedings before the courts and tribunals and assist other members of the team with the advocacy element of childcare cases as time permits.

You will support the Principal Advocate in developing advocacy skills across the child protection team.

The Childcare Team adopts an agile working policy with flexible working arrangements which includes access to a range of bases as well as remote or home working. We intend to continue working in a flexible manner in the future. The team are very approachable and have developed very strong and resilient arrangements for communication and support with a duty system in place to ensure an immediate point of contact.

You will be a qualified Barrister, Solicitor or Chartered Legal Executive with Advocacy Certificate and share the vision of Children's Services to work creatively together to inspire and empower children, young people and their families and communities to be the best they can be: safe, healthy, happy, learning and working.

In return for your commitment, we offer you:

- 27 days of annual leave plus another 5 once you reach 5 years of continuous service, plus 8 bank holidays
- Good work/life balance including Flexi time, allowing up to an additional 2 days of leave per month
- Training and development opportunities
- Mentoring
- A supportive team environment including an allocated legal assistant and a supportive administrative team
- Generous local government pension scheme
- Guaranteed incremental annual pay increases
- Access to a comprehensive wellbeing package
- Cycle to work scheme
- Discounts at selected county leisure centres
- and much more

We're always pleased to hear from talented people so if you're looking to join a dynamic team and have the skills and experience, we're looking for, then we'd like to hear from you.

**We’re recruiting to other vacancies in our Legal Team to information about these vacancies click **here.**

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