King's College London

About us:

King's College London is an internationally renowned university delivering exceptional education and world-leading research. King's has nearly 33,000 students from 190 countries, and is consistently ranked as one of the top 30 universities in the world (Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2025).

King’s is a multi-faculty institution, providing high-quality teaching, research and innovation across the sciences, humanities, medicine, law, dentistry, and social sciences. It’s the largest centre for the education of healthcare professionals in Europe, and is home to five Medical Research Council Centres spread across its three teaching hospitals.

Working closely with the Chair of Council, Lord Stevens of Birmingham, and the Vice-Chancellor & President, Professor Shitij Kapur, the University Secretary & Director of Assurance, Dr Sinéad Critchley, leads the Office of the Chairman and College Secretariat (OCCS). The Office comprises three key teams: Governance, Legal Services, and Audit and Assurance, each with a senior management lead. Collectively, OCCS is responsible for the effective running of governance across King’s, serving Council and its committees, supporting the Chair and Vice-Chancellor & President as a trusted advisor and a link between the non-executive and executive functions of the University, building assurance and compliance networks across King’s, supporting and contributing to strategic direction and ensuring compliance across a wide range of statutory, regulatory and policy requirements. Through the legal services team, OCCS oversees relevant activities governed by European/international legislation and contracts as well as specific agreements with partner establishments.

The Legal Services team currently consists of the General Counsel & Director of Legal Services and two Legal Counsel. The team provides legal advice to the whole College, manages the work and instructions of our external panel of law firms and oversees the College’s legal spend.

About the role:

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Junior Legal Counsel, ideally with a specialism in Employment Law, to join the Legal Services team.

The Junior Legal Counsel will work with the Legal Counsel (HR) and be responsible for providing high quality, considered and pragmatic legal advice across employment related matters. However the role holder will also need to provide advice on staff and student matters, education contracts, academic partnerships, dispute management and regulatory compliance, as well as delivering training and guidance materials to staff.

The Junior Legal Counsel will report to the General Counsel and Director of Legal Services and support the other Legal Counsel in the continued development of a legal team recognised for delivering excellent advice and support for the College.

This is a full time (35 hours per week), and you will be offered an indefinite contract.

About you:

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

 Essential criteria

1. Qualified to practice as a solicitor or barrister in England and Wales. 
2. Post qualification experience in a range of areas of law such as contract, charity, education, and commercial law but with a particular specialism in employment law.   
3. Experience and good knowledge of the Equality Act and relevant employment law legislation. 
4. Developed legal skills including drafting legal documents, researching, negotiation, advocacy and interviewing.  
5. Enthusiasm and ability to liaise effectively with internal and external clients, exploring their respective needs, adapting the service, and setting expectations.   
6. A self-motivated approach to planning and prioritising work loads with good organisational and time management skills.    
7. Demonstrable team working experience, including ability and willingness to take on new tasks in unfamiliar areas and to react rapidly to emerging issues. 
8. Evidence of ability to research and solve expansive problems using initiative and creativity; identify and propose both practical and innovative solution.  

Desirable criteria

1. Experience working as employment solicitor, drafting pleadings, witness statements and conducting employment tribunal claims and advocacy. 
2. In depth understanding of the legal and regulatory environment relating to the higher education sector.   
3. Experience working in an in-house team or university in house team.  
4. An understanding of legal issues relating to education, research, enterprise and professional services in a Higher Education context. 

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the page. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further information:

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's.

As part of this commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion and through this appointment process, it is our aim to develop candidate pools that include applicants from all backgrounds and communities.

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages.

Interviews are due to be held on week of 8th December 2025.