Senior Lawyer, New Towns and Memorials Team, MHCLG LA

From healthcare to artificial intelligence, energy to national security, we provide legal advice to government departments on nation-changing subjects.

At Government Legal Department we have a vital, single-minded purpose: to help the Government govern well within the rule of law. This is complemented by our exciting vision to be an outstanding legal organisation, committed to the highest standards of service and professionalism and a brilliant place to work where we can all thrive and fulfill our potential.

Our work touches almost every aspect of public life. We are the largest provider of legal services across government, working on high profile matters.

Our respected professionals are involved in everything from regulation and litigation to advice on drafting legislation. They provide expertise to the full range of government departments. We are at the heart of delivering the government’s priorities and our success depends on our people.

GLD is a non-ministerial government department headed by the Treasury Solicitor, our Permanent Secretary, and employs nearly 4000 people, including nearly 3000 legal professionals. We have offices nationwide, in Bristol, Leeds, inner and outer London and Manchester. Our lawyers can also be located within other departments and overseas.

GLD also depends on a range of cross-functional professionals to provide our corporate services. There are nearly 1000 colleagues playing an essential part in helping GLD to achieve its purpose and truly deliver much more than law.

This is an exciting time to join GLD, with cutting edge legal work on global issues and a transformation agenda which is ensuring the Department exemplifies the Modern Civil Service.

To find out more about what we do you can view our introductory film. On our website you can hear from team members, find out how to apply and learn about the benefits of working for GLD. You can also read more about the future vision for GLD in our GLD Strategy 2024 – 2027.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) Legal Advisers is a friendly, inclusive, high performing and collaborative Directorate with a strong sense of shared purpose. We provide legal support to the Secretary of State, Ministers and officials in MHCLG to support delivery across all MHCLG’s policy areas. Lawyers in MHCLG help implement policies to empower local leaders, spread opportunities, improve living standards across the UK and restore local pride. The Department has an ambitious agenda to drive up housing supply, increase home ownership, improve building safety, devolve powers and budgets to boost local growth, support strong public services and create community cohesion and social integration.We have a substantial programme of primary and secondary legislation and enjoy a wide and exciting portfolio of core government legal work supporting policy development and delivery in areas that make a real difference to the lives of UK citizens, which is hugely rewarding.

Our work includes advising on:

• Planning policy and casework including implementation of the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 and government proposals for planning reform
• Delivery of the new towns programme, an ambitious new programme designed to build housing, infrastructure and create local communities
• Housing policy (including reforms to the private rented sector and leasehold, social housing, homelessness, refugee housing
• Building safety and fire (remediation of unsafe buildings and recovery of government contributions to remediation funding, regulation to support safer, greener homes)
• Community integration, faith and social cohesion, construction of the Holocaust Memorial and the Grenfell Memorial
• Grant funding to support regional growth and regeneration
• Elections policy including the Representation of the People Bill
• Local government including implementation of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026.

The Directorate is comprised of twelve legal teams in 4 legal groups, with each team in a group headed by a Deputy Director. It is co-located with MHCLG in its London office and at the Planning Inspectorate in Bristol, with lawyers also working from our GLD Bristol, Croydon Leeds, and Manchester offices. The Legal Directors are Amanda Garner-Patel and Susan Carter, working in a job share.

We are looking for senior lawyers to join our New Towns and Memorials Team. You will play a pivotal role in delivering some of the government’s most ambitious objectives this Parliament.

The New Towns and Memorials team is a newly formed team providing legal advice and support across several Government priorities including the programme of New Towns, the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor, the establishment of delivery vehicles such as development corporations and the creation of nationally important memorials. The Government views the New Towns Programme as an integral part of its plans to boost innovation, quality and competition in housebuilding.

We are looking for a senior commercial, planning or advisory lawyer with a collaborative ethos to join at the heart of the Memorials function to help build a resilient team. We are looking for a lawyer to work with clients on the delivery of several key projects of national importance including both the Holocaust Memorial and the Grenfell Tower Memorial. Line managing a junior colleague, there is a continuing need to provide high quality, risk-based advice to the delivery team to ensure that the projects can progress with minimal legal impediments. The role engages with public law, planning law, commercial issues, statutory powers and government grants and needs a versatile, capable lawyer who can operate in an area with considerable sensitivity impediments.

This is an exciting and unique opportunity to provide time sensitive, critical and valuable legal advice to clients concerned with delivery. You will be supporting the establishment of bodies to plan, coordinate, and deliver large-scale development projects (including potential development corporations), and contribute to shaping future communities. The wider team currently has members in Bristol, Croydon, Leeds and London.

In addition, while not every GLD senior lawyer role always involves line management, we expect all our senior lawyers to have the skills and motivation to manage junior lawyers and provide strong professional leadership while dealing with complex and high-profile issues and projects. This particular role is likely to involve leading a mini-team of up to 2 others (including junior lawyers who may themselves be line managing Legal Officers, Legal Trainees, agency lawyers or paralegals).

Our senior lawyers are also part of our collective leadership, and you will be expected to contribute positively to the cultural and corporate life of the directorate. All of our lawyers have ‘corporate’ (directorate/GLD) roles covering a wide range of issues, from developing our legal learning syllabus, to helping run our Grants Centre of Excellence.

Ability to work constructively with a wide range of others is essential, whether it is clients, other parts of MHCLG, other parts of the team, lawyers elsewhere in the directorate (for example in our planning or local government teams), GLD’s Commercial Law Group and the Property Law Hub, Cabinet Office Legal Advisers and lawyers across government, external solicitors, GLD litigation lawyers or counsel.

The role requires the ability to work on policy development as well as operational delivery. It involves advising at pace on fast-developing situations, both in writing and face to face. It requires the assurance and experience to advise senior policy and operational colleagues, the Accounting Officer (Permanent Secretary) and Ministers. The post-holder will be expected to lead relationships with senior policy colleagues in their area, including on business planning and legal resourcing.

Key Responsibilities

The key responsibilities include:

• providing targeted advice in a flexible range of formats (written, verbal, comment boxes etc)
• managing a legal workstream and client relationships
• line managing (and leading a small mini-team of) junior lawyers, supporting their learning and professional development
• building and maintaining strong relationships with key stakeholders (policy and legal) and
• providing strong professional leadership within your team and the wider directorate.

Candidate Information Session

We will be holding a candidate information session for these roles on Microsoft Teams from 12:30pm – 1:30pm on Friday, 18th September 2026.

Candidates will have the opportunity to hear from Lawyers working within MHCLG New Towns team about what they do and their experiences working for government. There will also be an opportunity to ask questions about the role.

If you are interested in further information on this role please join the link below:

Microsoft Teams meeting

Join the New Towns and Memorials Team, MHCG LA Information Session

Meeting ID: 389 775 045 822 169

Passcode: w7Au3QA2

Academic and Professional

Applicants should have a minimum of a 2:1 honours degree in their first degree (in any subject). Where an applicant holds an overseas degree qualification this should be equivalent to a 2.1 degree. GLD will consider applicants who do not have a 2.1 degree but only where satisfactory evidence of equivalent high level academic and/or professional achievement can be provided (e.g. via relevant experience and results achieved for the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL)/CPE, Legal Practice Course (LPC), Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC)).

Applicants must be qualified to practise as a Solicitor, Barrister or Chartered Legal Executive in England and Wales; however, we also accept applications from overseas qualified candidates. You must have completed a training contract/pupillage/qualifying employment or have been exempted from this by the Law Society, the Bar Council or CILEx.

Please note that candidates cannot apply more than 3 months before their qualification date.

Professional entry criteria for Chartered Legal Executives (i.e. Fellows): Chartered Legal Executives are eligible to apply where (i) a Qualifying Law Degree (QLD) is held; or (ii) the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL)/CPE has been completed; or (iii) where exams have been passed (i.e. a score of 50% or above achieved), at CILEx Level 6*, in all of the following seven foundation subjects in law:

Contract Law

Criminal Law

Equity and Trusts Law

European Union Law

Land Law

Public Law

Law of Tort

• Note: There are specific requirements relating to academic achievement in the CILEx Level 6 exams where these are being used to demonstrate 2.1 degree equivalence as set out below.

Chartered Legal Executives should note that GLD will be willing to accept an, overall, average score of 65% or above across exams passed in the seven foundation subjects in law (where studied at CILEx Level 6) as demonstrating 2.1 degree equivalence (where a 2.1 degree is not held).

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

Application

To apply for this post you will need to complete the online application on Civil Service Jobs, searching the reference below. The deadline for this application is Tuesday, 29th September 2026 at 12:00 midday.

In your application you will be assessed on the following:

• A CV setting out you career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years. Your CV will be used to assess and score the Technical Legal Skills criteria.
• Individual statements of no more than 250 words each for the following Behaviours. The example you use for each Behaviour should relate back to the Essential Criteria found within the Person Specification:
• Leadership (lead behaviour)
• Managing a quality service
• Developing self and others

AI Usage

Civil Service Jobs states that artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application. However, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

In addition to this please note that in GLD the use of AI is strictly prohibited during tests, written exercises and interviews.

Application Errors

Please take extra care to tick the correct boxes in the eligibility sections of your application form. We understand mistakes sometimes happen but if you contact us later than two working days (Monday-Friday) before the vacancy closes, we will not be able to reopen your application for you. If you do make a mistake with your eligibility form, please contact us via: govqualified@tmpw.co.uk . Use the subject line to insert appropriate wording for example – ‘Please re-open my application – [insert vacancy ref] & vacancy closing date [insert date]’.

Selection Process

After the closing date, the appointing panel shall assess candidates’ suitability for the role based on evidence provided in their application against the behaviours, key skills and experience and technical legal skills outlined in the person specification.

Staged Sift: If there are a large number of applications the panel will conduct a staged sift. The initial sift will be on CV alone. Candidates assessed as demonstrating the required technical professional skills in their CV will progress to the second stage of the two-stage sift where their Behaviour Statements will be assessed. If a large number of applicants are still outstanding we will assess on the lead behaviour of Leadership alone. Candidates assessed as not demonstrating the required experience in their CV will not progress to have their behaviour statements assessed; they will be deemed as unsuccessful in the first stage of the two-stage sift.

In the eventuality that there are a high number of applicants successful at sift, GLD may operate a longlist, whereby applicants who have been shortlisted and met the minimum pass mark but are not selected for interview will have their application placed on hold. After the initial interview round candidates on the longlist may be offered an interview, should there still be posts available.

Written Exercise

Prior to the interview, candidates will be required to undertake a written exercise online. This will assess your technical legal skills and the Communicating and Influencing behaviour.

Interview

If you are invited to interview, you will be assessed on your performance in the criteria listed in the Person Specification, alongside scenario based exercises. These criteria are:

• Leadership (lead behaviour)
• Making effective decisions
• Communicating and influencing
• Developing self and others
• Managing a quality service
• Technical Legal Skills
• Key Skills and Experience

Presentation

During the interview, you will also be asked to deliver a 5 minute presentation which will be based on the scenario used for the written exercise. This will assess your technical legal skills and the Communicating and Influencing behaviour.

Further information about the presentation will be provided closer to your interview.

The interview will take place online.

Offer

The timeline later in this pack indicates the date by which decisions are expected to be made, and all shortlisted candidates will be advised of the outcome as soon as possible thereafter.

All communications regarding your application will be made through Civil Service Jobs.

All candidates will be notified of the outcome as soon as possible after the interview. Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview.

We appoint in strict order of merit. If you meet the minimum criteria for this position but are not successful for a post, you will be placed on the reserve list. We may contact you to see if you are interested in a post at the same, or a lower grade, in GLD should one arise.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.