Solicitor

About us

The Civil Legal Assistance Office (CLAO) is a team of skilled, committed and passionate people, providing publicly funded legal services in Highland and the Islands, Edinburgh and Lothians, Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire and Argyll and Bute.

Our work in housing law (repossession; homelessness; unlawful eviction; disrepair) child protection, mental health, welfare benefits and debt concentrates on the rights of people who are disadvantaged.

We work closely with other agencies as part of our work to triage and refer some cases to other solicitors, advisors or support organisations. Further information on what we do can be found at www.clao.org.uk.


What we are offering

We currently have a permanent vacancy for a skilled court solicitor within the Edinburgh and Lothians team of our CLAO service.

The Edinburgh and Lothians Team is part of a network, which also provides services in the Highland and the Islands, Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire and Argyll and Bute and focusses on the rights of people who are disadvantaged.

Our Edinburgh and Lothians team’s core caseload consists of publicly funded housing law (social and private landlord eviction, mortgage repossession, homelessness, unlawful eviction, and disrepair), benefits and debt work.

This focus will give the post holder opportunities to carry out rewarding work that may have a considerable impact on clients’ lives. On occasion, it may mean dealing with casework involving distressed and sometimes traumatised people seeking legal solutions to help resolve distressing life situations. This requires a calm, resilient disposition and an ability to focus on pursuing legal solutions, which can really make a difference.

The successful candidate will be passionate about using, and developing, their litigation skills strategically, to improve the lives of as many people as possible. They will also be keen to be involved in continuously improving and innovating our service, as we build on the achievements of our 2017-2020 business plan, focussing on redesigning our services in 2021-2022 in response to COVID 19.

They will work closely with other advice providers to triage and refer certain cases to other solicitors, advisers or support organisations; to provide some second tier advice and training to other service providers on our core areas of casework and to explore opportunities for strategic partnership working, as part of our strategy to maximise the impact of our service.

The work of this role will be primarily based in Edinburgh with occasional travel to the Lothians. From time to time travel to other areas may be expected, to cover work across the network in accordance with the needs of the business.

We welcome and encourage applications from diverse backgrounds, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce. We pride ourselves as being an employer of choice.
Our benefits package includes a competitive holiday entitlement and a contributory defined benefit pension scheme. We also offer our employees access to comprehensive learning and development opportunities and well-being support. More details about our benefit package is available in the full job description.

About you

We need you to be a court practitioner with excellent technical skills and the ability to focus these where you can make the biggest difference; with a full, post-qualified and unrestricted practising certificate from the Law Society of Scotland and a commitment to practising and developing social welfare law.

You will be highly organised, have strong interpersonal skills and be calm and resilient.

GRADE 5 or 6 SOLICITOR
Edinburgh
For Grade 6 starting salary from £38,200
For Grade 5 starting salary from £31,510 (newly or recently qualified solicitors)


This position is an excellent opportunity for skilled court solicitors: ideal both for those who already have a track record of excelling at litigation work and for newly or recently qualified solicitors, who can demonstrate the potential to do so and who are looking for the opportunity to progress their career in a highly rewarding work environment.

Either way you will manage a demanding caseload, with more experienced solicitors expected to do so with less supervision.

Application Information