JOB SUMMARY

Discover a career in your hands at HMRC. Whether you’re seeking purpose, growth, or a workplace that gives you a true sense of belonging, hear from some of our employees as they share their story about what it’s really like to work at HMRC.
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At HMRC we are committed to creating a great place to work for all our colleagues; an inclusive and respectful environment that reflects the diversity of the society we serve.
We want to maximise the potential of everyone who chooses to work for us, and we offer a range of flexible working patterns and support to make a fulfilling career at HMRC accessible to you.
Diverse perspectives and experiences are critical to our success, and we welcome applications from people from all backgrounds with the experience and skills needed to perform this role.
HMRC Legal Group gives legal advice on issues arising from HMRC’s work and conducts HMRC’s litigation. Our work impacts the lives of millions, as we help to collect the money that pays for the UK’s public services and provide targeted financial support to families and individuals. We have around 1572 people including lawyers, tax professionals, advocates, paralegals and administrators. Our strength is in our diverse people and the inclusive working culture that brings us together.
We work in supportive, specialist teams, that handle a broad range of different areas of law including general public law (human rights, administrative law, freedom of information) tax law, commercial law, insolvency law, information law and criminal law, employer’s liability for personal injury, focusing on either policy and operational advisory work or litigation. We also have a small number of Professional Support Lawyers who are responsible for specialist areas of knowledge.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Our litigation lawyers conduct litigation across the full range of HMRC work. We litigate some of the most challenging and important high value, complex Government litigation. These include big money tax cases and cases ranging from resisting judicial review challenges to litigating civil cases against those who benefit from the proceeds of crime. Our cases will often involve novel and challenging points of law and contribute to developing the interpretation of the law. We regularly litigate through the higher courts to the Supreme Court.
This is a unique Professional Support Lawyer (“PSL”) role situated in our Litigation Directorate. It is an exciting time as this is a newly formed Litigation Directorate, built on an already strong foundation established through securing Lexcel accreditation for all of our litigation.
You will focus on developing knowledge in the Litigation Directorate. This includes continuously improving the quality of materials and training underpinning this work.
There is a significant amount of existing content in the litigation sphere, with a range of guidance notes (both for lawyers and non-lawyer litigators) and training materials. There is a particular need to review this material to identify duplication, to maintain and sign-post key content and to run periodic training sessions. There may also be opportunities for the postholder to explore the use of AI tools in projects relating to the effective and efficient delivery of litigation work.
There may be an occasional need to travel in the UK including overnight stays.

QUALIFICATIONS

You need to be qualified as a Solicitor or Barrister or Chartered Legal Executive in England and Wales.
Solicitors, Barristers or Chartered Legal Executives must have completed a training contract/pupillage/qualifying employment or have been exempted from this by the Law Society, the Bar Council or CILEx. Chartered Legal Executives must have a Qualifying Law Degree or have completed the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL)/CPE or have passed exams (i.e. a score of 50% or above achieved) at CILEx Level 6, in all the seven foundation subjects in law: contract law, criminal law, equity and trusts law, European Union Law, land law, public law and law of tort.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

We’ll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Candidates will be tested on their legal litigation and analytical skills.
• Candidates will be provided with a legal scenario shortly before their interview and asked to present their advice in relation to it (orally) to the interview panel for 5-10 minutes followed by questions from the panel.

NATIONALITY REQUIREMENTS

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)
• 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

Key duties include:

• monitor, evaluate and explain relevant law and litigation procedural developments;
• produce, commission, manage, deliver and sign-post key knowledge and training content including precedents, guidance and training materials;
• foster and develop continuous improvements to the collaborative working processes and practices across the Litigation Directorate, Legal Group and relevant colleagues in the wider department;
• encourage and support Litigation Directorate colleagues and Legal Group lawyers in engaging with best practice knowledge by fostering a culture of leveraging and valuing legal knowledge;
• work across Litigation Directorate, Legal Group functions and the wider government litigation community with a view to making connections, influencing and developing know-how and learning;
• monitor and report on the impact of KM activities, including PSL activities;
• pro-actively collaborate and share PSL skills and experience with Legal Group colleagues, and the wider PSL, knowledge and learning functions in Legal Group and across the Government Legal Profession;
• contribute to, and trial the possible adoption of, new technologies and ways of working;
• create and maintain relevant litigation SharePoint pages;
• horizon scan, monitor trends and develop insights across HMRC Legal Group functions;
• lead, develop or support related communities of practice and networks