Paralegal

Job summary

Working in a team reporting to the Head of Legal (Commercial) you will be given a rare opportunity to develop your career, grow your expertise and undertake professional development with roles and projects that will accelerate housing delivery and create thriving places.

You will be joining our small, friendly and approachable team who are committed to providing first class legal advice to Homes England. The purpose of this role is to support the team and provide a proactive, professional legal service to Homes England in relation to a mixed caseload of transactional and governance advice relating to a range of commercial contracts.

Working with key internal and external stakeholders you will ensure efficient, consistent and effective provision of legal services and have the opportunity to help deliver the homes and places that our communities need, and to support the regeneration of our towns, cities and rural communities.

You should enjoy working in the transaction environment either directly offering advice or instructing external solicitors to ensure Homes England accesses the best advice.

From day one, you’ll be encouraged, challenged, supported, stretched and listened to. You’ll take ownership of projects to develop your skills and work with multi-disciplined teams where your advice matters and directly helps enable us to address the current housing market issues and help deliver the Agency’s mission to increase the delivery of new homes.

This is a rare chance to be part of a fast growing, national organisation with real social purpose.

Job description

Whilst our day job is to deliver first class customer service to our stakeholders, you will be used to "spinning several plates" at once and will always be looking for ways to improve and innovate.

As well as being experienced in commercial contracts; you’ll need real energy, be highly motivated and able to demonstrate your ability to work and succeed in an ever-changing and fast-paced environment.

You will be curious, adaptable, collaborative and commercially aware. Strong intellectual and analytical skills are important too and we will support you to develop your legal expertise making this role a particularly rare opportunity to have a blended commercial and public sector legal practice.

A positive attitude when faced with transaction-based challenges and problem solving will be essential qualities. Above all a proven and continuing commitment to offering high quality transactional experience will be essential.

Delivering on a mission as bold as ours isn’t always easy. You will be resilient and comfortable managing stakeholders at a senior level and your discussions will always be shaped by a good understanding of the commercial and operational impact of what we do as a legal team. You will enjoy working in an innovative, fun and engaging way and be able to negotiate and persuade.

As an experienced legal professional you’ll understand how to manage colleagues and be able to demonstrate you can work with others as part of a team in a collaborative, inclusive way.

Person specification

1. Essential: Law degree or Graduate Diploma in Law (Common Professional Exam) or CILEX qualification.
2. Essential: Proven experience as a paralegal, with full cycle commercial contracts exposure
3. Essential: Good computer literacy (Word and Excel). Excellent administration skills. Ability to prioritise and work to strict timetable/deadlines.
4. Essential: High attention to detail and strong drafting skills coupled with excellent verbal and written communication, diplomacy and tact.
5. Essential: Working with a legal team or information access environment, experience within a rapidly changing organisation, dealing with external parties, knowledge and understanding of legal documentation and process.
6. Essential: Ability to manage heavy and varied workload.
7. Desirable: Working within a public sector body or in-house.

Benefits

Homes England is an executive non-departmental public body with its own terms and conditions, benefits and pension scheme. We are a government agency working in partnership with the private sector and want to employ and retain great people. In return we offer a range of excellent benefits, some of the key benefits include:

Holiday - Homes England offers all staff 33 days annual leave per year in addition to 8 statutory bank holidays.

Working Flexibly - At Homes England we have a strong culture of flexible working and encourage all employees to have a healthy work/life balance. We offer a wide range of potential working patterns, including part time, job share and compressed hours.

Health and Wellbeing - We offer health screening with Nuffield Proactive Health Clinics, a free Employee Assistance Programme which offers confidential support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as well as access to Occupational Health.

Professional Development - At Homes England we are committed to your continued professional and personal development with learning as one of our core values. We pay for one job-related professional membership subscription per year for our employees.

We also offer an excellent range of family friendly benefits, for example, maternity, paternity, shared parental leave.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

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 (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

How to apply?

To apply please follow the links to our careers page.

Security

Successful candidates must pass a disclosure and barring security check.

Selection process details

For more information on the role, please see the attached Job Description.

Successful applicants will be advised of the outcome of their application and interviews held as soon as practical after the closing date. Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in this role and Homes England.

Please note – Homes England has a responsibility to ensure compliance with HMG Baseline Personnel Security Standard to address the potential problems of identity fraud, illegal working and deception generally. To ensure compliance we will carry out a pre-employment Personal Identity and Vetting Report through Experian to meet the standard and you will therefore be asked to provide certain information in order that the verification check can be carried out if you are successful in your application.

Homes England are an equal opportunities employer and positively encourages applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates. We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer that values and respects the people who work for us. Our aim is to be an employer of choice, enabling everyone to reach their full potential.

Homes England is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal data. For further information please refer to our Privacy Notice which can be viewed here: