Children Legal Officer

The Team

North Yorkshire Legal and Democratic Services is a positive, ambitious and successful team which has a strong commitment to provide high quality and cost-effective legal services to the Council and a number of external clients.

The Legal Services Team is part of Legal and Democratic Services (‘LDS’) within the Chief Executive’s Group.

NYC provides a range of services to the County of North Yorkshire, and the role of the Legal Service is to support the provision by providing a comprehensive and efficient legal service to the Directorates, the Council’s Executive, full Council, Committees and Members, and external clients.

In return for your hard work and dedication to our service, we can offer you the chance to be part of a strong and supportive team.

As a Children Legal Officer, you will support the Legal Team who provide legal advice in relation to Children Law. This will include children care and discharge of care proceedings, deprivation of liberty applications, private law proceedings and other family matters as appropriate to the nature of the role.

Support will be provided in any areas of the law where the candidate has not had the relevant experience.

You will be part of a supportive team of professionals with variable workloads, having the opportunity to learn and develop in other disciplines within our service.

• Assisting with Discharge of Care Order applications from start to conclusion including drafting applications on instruction, reviewing evidence/orders and summarising for Solicitor, assisting with filing/bundling/correspondence with Court, parties, client and Counsel where necessary
• Dealing with all private law matters including review of all Orders received, overseeing filing and compliance with Orders, providing advice to clients in instances where the Local Authority is not a party to proceedings
• Reviewing and actioning all Third-Party Material Requests including ensuring they are compliant and undertaking redaction of records to be disclosed
• Dealing with out of Court cases regarding change of name for children subject to a Care Order and assisting Solicitor with in-Court cases of this nature
• Actioning where necessary disclosure requests to and from other Local Authorities under Working Together Agreement and Family Procedure Rules
• Assisting with applications to the High Court and Court of Protection for Deprivation of Liberty orders

We are looking for forward-thinking individuals that can demonstrate resilience and can produce timely solutions for a range of problems. In your application, we would love to hear about your experience and why you consider you would be suitable for the role.

The ideal candidate will be a confident team player who is able to 'hit the ground running'. You will have a fine eye for detail and thrive in a fast-paced environment with a dynamic and varied workload.

• Your ability to interact positively with colleagues and clients.

• Your ability to communicate effectively in writing to produce documents in a range of formats and style to suit a range of audiences and produce a representative record of meeting discussion and actions.
• Working knowledge of Court procedures.
• Your demonstrable experience of legal work ideally within Children Law.

In addition, the following would be advantageous, but not essential

• Knowledge or experience of working in Local Authority. However, we would welcome applications from the private sector.

• A Level Law and/or Law Degree and/or Membership of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives

You will also have access to a number of various benefits are available such as generous annual leave entitlement, excellent pension scheme, salary sacrifice car, cycle, technology and childcare schemes and a package of ‘Everybody Benefits’ shopping vouchers, discounts and more.

We offer hybrid working with the option to work from home and flexible hours, helping you achieve a healthy work-life balance.

Please see our total rewards brochure for more information.

If you are interested in playing a key part in our Legal team and would like to have an informal conversation, please contact Claire Bryant, Senior Solicitor (Children Team People Services) on or Cla to arrange a suitable time for a discussion about the role.

Applying is easy, simply click on apply now, register your details, remove your personal details from your CV

Closing Date:10 February 2026

Interviews:

Provisionally 18thand 19thFebruary 2026

Job description

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