Senior Legal Officer (Ref: 24172)

Please refer to Job Description

Proud to serve. Proud to keep justice going.

Our Senior Legal Officers play a critical role in helping deliver justice. If you’re intent on serving the public by delivering excellent service, and are enthusiastic about working with the judiciary, then this role gives you the opportunity to play a pivotal role within HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS).

About us

Part of HMCTS, the Tribunals Directorate is responsible for the effective administration of Tribunals in England and Wales and non-devolved Tribunals in Scotland and Northern Ireland. We work with an independent judiciary across a wide range of jurisdictions to provide a fair, efficient and effective justice system.

Your role

Working within the legal operations framework in the Tribunals jurisdiction, the Senior Tribunal Caseworker/Legal Officer will support the effective administration of Tribunal business.

The post holder will do this by managing a team consisting of a minimum of 9 Tribunal Caseworker/Legal Officer staff. Team leadership and management duties and responsibilities are likely to take up a significant proportion of the post holder’s time. Alongside this, the post holder will also be expected to undertake complex casework and assessment activity, in order to determine how best to advance caseloads and remove any barriers to effective and timely case progression.

This Senior Legal Officer role will be based in the Employment Tribunal in one of the following locations in London. The location will be confirmed on appointment.

Watford: Employment Tribunals, Radius House, 51 Clarendon Rd, Watford WD17 1HP

London East Employment Tribunals, 2nd Floor, Import Building, 2 Clove Crescent, London, E14 2BE

London Central Employment Tribunals, London Tribunal Centre, 7 Newgate St, London EC1A 7AZ

London South Employment Tribunals Montague Court,101 London Road, Croydon, CR0 2RF

About you

Are you able to reflect on an issue and take an informed and impartial approach to your work, making evidence-based decisions? If you do, this varied and challenging role is for you.

A confident communicator and decision maker, you will use your skills and abilities to effectively work and engage with all court users. You’ll understand the importance of impartial decision making, and the need to understand a wide range of information at pace. You’ll have the ability to communicate with multiple levels of stakeholders internal and external to the Tribunal, with varying communication methods and the ability to adapt your communication to your audience.

For a full job description, please read supporting document included below before applying.

Experience

A Senior Tribunal Caseworker/Legal Officer will be expected to have knowledge, skills and experience and provide evidence at both the sift and interview stages which include:

• Detailed knowledge of the legal and administrative functions of the Tribunal
• Detailed knowledge of tribunal procedure
• Competent use of IT and legal resource material
• Presentation skills
• A law degree or equivalent experience is desirable
• Experience leading a team is desirable
• Experience working as a Legal Officer/Tribunal Caseworker is desirable
• A law degree or equivalent technical experience is desirable.

The equivalent technical experience has been defined as:

“The demonstration of a transferable decision-making aptitude, working within a set framework or guidance and previous precedents, under a form of supervision”

Interview Schedule Notice

Interviews are scheduled to take place in mid-December 2026. Please note that rescheduling will only be considered in exceptional circumstances, and any rearrangements must still occur within the interview period.

Further details

New recruits to the Civil Service joining MoJ are expected to join at the band minimum.

These operational roles are customer facing, requiring successful applicants to be office based to provide HMCTS services to the public. Non-contractual hybrid working may be available, but we cannot facilitate requests for a particular work from home/working in the office schedule.

Working Pattern

The roles are offered on a full-time basis. Standard full time working hours are 37 hours per week Monday to Friday. However, requests for part-time/reduced hours working will be considered at the point of provisional offer, subject to meeting business requirements within the relevant business area in accordance with the MoJ’s Flexible Working policy.

Occasional travel to other courts

For this post, occasional travel to other sites may be required

Technical Skills

Legal scenario will be given at interview as part of the assessment A law degree or equivalent technical experience is desirable.

The equivalent technical experience has been defined as: “The demonstration of a transferable decision-making aptitude, working within a set framework or guidance and previous precedents, under a form of supervision”

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, Strengths and Technical skills.

https://justicejobs.tal.net/vx/candidate/cms/About%20the%20MOJ

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