We are looking to recruit an experienced qualified lawyer to assist with our legal casework.
The role will either be appointed at a Senior Legal Caseworker or Legal Manager level, depending on experience and suitability.
Details
Accountable to: Senior Solicitor or Legal Manager
Location: Home working with occasional need to travel
Type: Permanent full time; part time working will be considered
Hours: Flexible (our full-time working week is currently 37.5 hours)
Salary: Legal Manager: £51,417 per annum (FTE)
Senior Legal Caseworker: £46,500 per annum (FTE)
Why Access Social Care Exists
Every day millions of older and disabled people are denied the social care they need. Most local authorities can’t meet the growing demand for care, and none are confident they can meet their legal duties in the future. This affects all of us – we will all need care at some point in our lives.
We all have a right to hold public bodies to account, but most of us cannot afford lawyers so rely on legal aid. The 92% drop in legal aid cases since 2010 means that we have nowhere to turn. Without access to justice, our rights do not exist.
What we do
Access Social Care (‘ASC’) provides legal advice and information for people with adult social care needs, helping achieve a better quality of life. We work with communities to increase knowledge of the law and our rights.
Our legal team provide access to justice when things go wrong. We are working towards a future where adult social care is adequately funded, and we all get the support we need.
We provide rights awareness training to front line managers, and legal advice and casework support to families and individuals. As well as providing access to justice, our aim is to drive system level change through evidence-led influencing and strategic casework.
This is an exciting time to join ASC. We have a new strategy. We are dedicated to the people who need our help, and we care deeply about our team. We think that work should be an exciting and satisfying place to be.
About the role
- Legal Manager: our legal managers are qualified lawyers who lead our team’s work by 1) holding a caseload of more complex matters; 2) developing and delivering legal rights training to partner organisations and other groups; and 3) supervising and line managing more junior members of the team. Legal mangers have significant experience supervising and managing a team of caseworkers and providing top level guidance on how best to tackle complicated legal issues related to care in the community.
- Senior Legal Caseworker: our senior legal caseworkers focus on 1) a significant caseload of complex community care matters; 2) developing and delivering legal rights training to partner organisations and other groups; and 3) providing casework supervision (but not line management) to other members of the team. Senior legal caseworkers are developing their experience in supervising and supporting other members of the team and providing top level guidance on how to tackle legal issues, whilst continuing to develop and focus on their own practice and caseload.
Usual responsibilities for Legal Manager role
- Running your own caseload of community care matters:
- Ensuring all deadlines on cases are met
- Able to think tactically, creatively and strategically in order to progress cases
- Relationship lead for one or more of our partners, including overall responsibility for assessing new referrals, legal casework, relationship management and supporting team members working on this account
- Line management of a small team (up to 3 direct/6 indirect reports)
- Being live to trends in casework and reporting these to other members of the legal team and the executive, and creatively finding solutions to repeated issues
- Developing and delivering training both internally and externally and/or taking the lead on another distinct area of responsibility within the Directorate (e.g. data, safeguarding etc).
- Supporting with the development and implementation of team policies
- Contributing to ASC projects on influencing systems change as required
- Undertake such other tasks as may reasonably be required or asked of you in order to respond to organisational need and specifically needs within the legal team
This list of tasks is not exhaustive and will be reviewed from time to time in discussion with the post holder.
Usual responsibilities for Senior Legal Caseworker role
- Running your own caseload of community care matters:
- Ensuring all deadlines on cases are met
- Able to think tactically, creatively and strategically in order to progress cases
- Relationship lead for one or more of our partners, including overall responsibility for assessing new referrals, provision of advice or legal casework, relationship management and supporting more junior team members working on this account
- Support the team to develop our network of external partners
- Take responsibility for your learning and development with support from our internal L&D resources and making use any agreed external opportunities.
- Support the training and development of more junior members of the team, through casework supervision, developing in house training and resources and supporting the Legal Managers and L&D lead.
- Developing and delivering legal rights training both internally and externally.
- Develop and maintain relationships with other professionals involved in working with our clients.
- Undertake such other tasks as may reasonably be required or asked of you in order to respond to organisational need and specifically needs within the legal team
This list of tasks is not exhaustive and will be reviewed from time to time in discussion with the post holder.
Person Specification
All staff at ASC are expected to share and demonstrate our values:
| Trustworthy | Recognised for excellence, we will be the best we can be in everything we do. We will be truthful, independent and outcomes focussed. |
| Fair | We believe in treating people with kindness and compassion in a way that is right, reasonable and just. |
| Fearless | We will do what is right, not what is easy. We will bravely challenge injustice. |
| Inclusive | Our beneficiaries’ voices will influence our thinking and decision making at all levels of our organisation. Collaborative in our thinking, we will work with others to achieve our goals. |
| Positive | We will be constructive and progressive in our challenge. We will optimistically and dynamically drive for change. |
In addition to our values, you will also need to be able to demonstrate or tell us about the following areas at your interview:
| Requirements | Essential/ Desirable for Legal Manager | Essential / Desirable for Senior Caseworker |
| Experience you will have | ||
| Substantial experience as a qualified legal practitioner | E | D |
| Substantial experience of conducting casework in adult community care law, or substantial relevant experience in a closely aligned legal specialism, together with demonstrable ability to learn a new area of law quickly | E | E |
| Experience in managing a diverse team and multiple projects, including in a remote working environment | E | D |
| Experience of supervising casework | E | E |
| Experience of working in a legal aid setting | D | D |
| Experience of creating, supporting with and implementing new policies and processes | D | N/A |
| Experience of facilitating workshops and delivering training | D | D |
| Skills you will have | ||
| Strong legal research skills | E | E |
| Strong communication, presentation and influencing skills | E | E |
| Able to make full use of Microsoft Office programmes, electronic case management systems, and time recording apps | E | E |
| Excellent client skills, particularly an ability to explain complex legal issues and potential solutions to non-specialist audiences | E | E |
| Excellent problem-solving skills | E | E |
| Strong networking and stakeholder engagement skills | D | D |
| Personal attributes you will need | ||
| Positive about working for Access Social Care | E | E |
| Work well with all colleagues | E | E |
| Interest in supporting people to understand their rights and entitlements | E | E |
| Take responsibility for your own development | E | E |
| Interest in helping others and the service to be the best they can be | E | E |
| Honesty about your own and others performance, and commitment to continuous improvement | E | E |
| Well organised, able to effectively self-manage a diverse workload, progressing longer projects at the same time as responding to quick deadlines | E | E |
| Ability to work flexibly and remotely | E | E |
| Willingness to travel | E | E |
| Knowledge you will have gained | ||
| Knowledge of community care law | E | E |
| Knowledge of the legal aid sector | E | D |
| Knowledge of safeguarding | E | D |
| Knowledge of adult social care issues and other issues of importance to our beneficiaries | E | E |
| Knowledge of different ways to communicate with people with a learning disability | D | D |
| Knowledge of the advice sector | D | D |
How to apply
We hope that having read this far, you will want to apply!
Please ensure that your CV and supporting statement do not include your name – use initials only. This will ensure that we avoid unconscious bias in our shortlisting process. To apply, please provide and complete the following documents:
- An up-to-date CV
- A supporting statement of no more than two pages, addressing:
- The essential requirements of the person specification
- Complete the Equality and Diversity Recruitment Monitoring Form – Fill out form
Applications that do not include a supporting statement will not be considered.
Please send to jobs@accesscharity.org.uk. Please ensure that your full name and contact number are included in your application email. This will enable us to contact you if you have been successful to the next stage of the recruitment process.
If you want support applying, including reasonable adjustments, contact us using the email address above.
Please ensure you have the right to work in the UK before expressing your interest in this role. We are sorry that we cannot consider applications from candidates who do not have the right to work in the UK.
We only reach out to candidates who have been shortlisted. If you do not receive communication from us within two weeks following the application deadline, please consider that we will not be moving forward with your application.
Timeline for recruitment process
If we receive a high number of applications for this role, we may close the role early. Therefore, we encourage you to apply as soon as you are able.
Closing date: 11:59pm on Wednesday 12th August 2026.
Interview will take place on Friday 21st August 2026.
Please ensure you keep these dates free.
At Access Social care, we aren’t interested in tokenism. We know that if we are to make the biggest difference for the people that need us the most, we need to get Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and anti-racism right. Part of this is recruiting greater diversity in all our teams.
With this in mind, we particularly welcome applications from candidates with experience of the communities we serve, including people with direct experience of the social care system, and from marginalised groups, particularly Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups, older and disabled people, and trans and non-binary people.
Guaranteed Interview Scheme
For every role we advertise, we outline a set of minimum skills or experience that are key to doing the job well. If you have a disability (this includes long term health conditions or mental health conditions) and you meet these minimum criteria, you can request to be considered under our Guaranteed Interview Scheme.
If you would like to apply through this scheme, please clearly show in your supporting statement how you meet the minimum requirements for the role and indicate in your application email that you wish to be considered under the scheme. If you are applying via Charity Jobs, please ensure that you indicate at the beginning of your supporting statement that you wish to be considered under the scheme.
Being offered an interview through this route does not mean you are guaranteed the job. The selection decision will still be based on who performs best at interview.
If you are invited to interview, we will ask if you need any reasonable adjustments to support you during the process.
Please note: If we receive a high number of applications from candidates who meet the essential criteria and request to be considered under the scheme, we may need to prioritise those whose applications most closely match the role requirements.
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