Legal Counsel - Health

Job overview

We are seeking an exceptional lawyer to join our team as Legal Counsel (Health). Working within a developing NHS in-house legal service, you will advise on complex, sensitive and often urgent legal issues arising from the delivery of healthcare.

Alongside your own complex caseload, you will provide leadership and supervision to the Healthcare Legal Services team and help us continue to develop a proactive and high performing Legal Services function that best supports the Trusts we represent.

Main duties of the job

As Legal Counsel you will:

• Provide expert, authoritative and pragmatic legal advice on complex healthcare matters, including urgent and highly sensitive issues affecting patients, clinicians and the organisation.
• Manage a portfolio of the most complex, high risk and high profile healthcare legal matters.
• Lead on difficult and contentious inquests, including preparing witnesses, developing case strategy, undertaking advocacy and making legal submissions on behalf of the Trusts
• Provide senior legal oversight of complex and high value clinical negligence claims, scrutinising evidence and advice and applying constructive challenge where appropriate.
• Advise senior clinicians, managers and executive colleagues on emerging legal and reputational risks.
• Advise across areas including mental capacity, mental health, deprivation of liberty, complex discharge and other healthcare law issues affecting adults and older children.
• Develop effective relationships with key external stakeholders including Coroners and Coroners' Officers, NHS Resolution, Counsel, external solicitors, the Official Solicitor, Police and local authorities.
• Provide professional leadership, supervision and line management to lawyers within the Healthcare Legal Services team.
• Support learning from claims, inquests and legal advice, ensuring themes and risks are identified and appropriately escalated.
• Assist with the delivery of legal training across the organisation.
• Deputise for General Counsel as required.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see attached Job Description and Person Specification which sets out the main responsibilities of the role.

Provision of legal advice on a wide range of queries affecting our NHS Trust clients and staff members, sometimes in urgent and time-critical situations, requiring high level of knowledge and analytical skills and ability to communicate contentious, complex and sensitive issues clearly.

Management of a caseload of clinical negligence claims including high value birth injury (Obstetric) matters. Review and scrutinise expert reports and advice from panel solicitors, applying challenge and feedback as appropriate.

Management of a caseload of the most complex, difficult and high risk inquest matters. To advise, prepare and support members of staff who are required to give evidence. Attend inquests as the Trust's representative, liaising with families or other IP legal representatives, conducting witness examination as required and making formal legal submissions to HM Coroner as appropriate.

Review of commercial contracts, SLAs and agreements to identify areas of risk and advise Trust appropriately.

Production of reports for, and attendance at, senior Trust meetings as required.

Deputise for General Counsel in their absence across all matters.

Oversees delivery within Healthcare Legal Services including planning and tracking of workloads and appropriate escalation to General Counsel.

Line management, supervision and mentoring of the Legal Services team (Healthcare) including direct line management of other solicitors.

When submitting your application please confirm whether you have used a generative AI tool (for example, Microsoft Copilot or ChatGPT) in preparing your application and, if so, briefly describe how you used it.

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.