We have an opportunity for a Litigation Paralegal in HMRC’s Solicitor’s Office and Legal Services based in our Manchester Regional Centre.

6 month initial contract.

The Office is an integral part of HMRC. It is headed by the General Counsel and Solicitor, Alan Evans, and includes approximately 350 lawyers who advise on legal issues arising from HMRC’s policy and operational work and conduct the Department’s litigation. Our legal work is high quality and covers a broad range of subjects. In addition to tax, our advice covers public law issues for HMRC, including human rights, administrative law, freedom of information, criminal law, benefits and credits and commercial law. Our lawyers work in specialist teams handling specific areas of work. Each team tends to focus on either advisory work or litigation and the opportunities available in this trawl are for Litigation. Our paralegals are an integral source of support for our lawyers.

We are looking for intellectually capable, highly motivated self-starting people with excellent oral and written communication skills.

You need:

• a legal qualification and strong legal research skills, ideally with a good working knowledge of legal databases such as LexisNexis and Westlaw.
• previous Litigation experience.
• to be very well organised and able to manage a busy and varied workload.
• to be proactive and flexible.
• to be able to do several routine admin tasks (see more information above).
• excellent IT skills (word/excel/outlook).
• to have good self-awareness and a commitment to using feedback to learn and develop.

If you are successful you can expect to work on any of the following:

International litigation Depending on experience assisting with/leading the co-ordination of international litigation (including any relevant transitional CJEU litigation): working closely with other SOLS/international litigation co-ordinators; extract and precis relevant issues to inform lawyers and assist clients in deciding whether to get involved; liaising with clients about involvement; liaising with other relevant stakeholders (SOLS colleagues including litigation support and relevant Government Legal Department teams).

Legal Research on wide range of advisory work, including identifying relevant primary and secondary legislation; checking for any updates or amendments to such legislation; researching relevant case law and preparing appropriate research briefings for lawyers.

Assisting with and co-ordinating Parliamentary Bill work, including collating documents for lawyers to attend parliamentary debates; research for/input into instructions to Parliamentary Counsel; overseeing Bill timetable and related documents; where appropriate initial reviews of TIINs, ENs etc; preparing keeling schedules.

Assisting with work on secondary legislation, including assisting lawyers with the Statutory Instrument (SI) template and validation as appropriate; checking/drafting footnotes; being further pair of eyes on final drafts; preparing keeling schedules and maintaining monthly list of SIs in order to pro-actively offer help to lawyers; if appropriate drafting simple SIs under supervision.

Administration Various administrative tasks: arranging/co-ordinating/where appropriate chairing meetings/drafting agendas/taking notes; helping with legal teams’ management information eg keeping team case lists up to date, assisting in compiling team reports; co-ordination of data on Counsel’s fees expenditure and forecast to include translation service.

Input into and co-ordination/monitoring of knowledge management: assisting with disseminating know-how, including uploading material onto Sols' knowledge management databases; managing team’s KM area; weekly reporting of work and client training; and where necessary drafting and/or updating practice notes.

Supporting the preparation of Instructions to Counsel including drafting elements of the brief where appropriate e.g., introduction, chronologies etc; liaising with support teams if necessary, where appropriate being responsible for Instructions to Counsel e.g., instructing counsel to attend at bail variation hearings and independent counsel regarding material potentially subject to Legal Professional Privilege.

Other work as appropriate, for example: producing summaries of legal advice/statutory provisions; proofreading; taking notes at conferences with counsel etc; initial review of draft search warrant applications to support criminal investigations and handling Mutual Legal Assistance requests (requests from foreign states for information to assist criminal investigations).