This is an exciting opportunity has arisen to join this successful and rapidly growing Education law team at a private practice law firm in Leeds. They are looking to recruit two Education lawyers – one of 0 to 3 and the other of 5 or more years’ PQE. The team’s clients include: • schools • further education institutions and universities with a national reach. The team supports a range of educational institutions on various regulatory and compliance issues and collaborates with other departments in the firm (eg. Employment) to deliver client service excellence and a complete package of essential legal services. The successful candidates will be given plenty of client responsibility and exposure and key responsibilities will include: • advising on the development and application of statutory policies; • advising on the requirements of equality law, particularly in the context of special educational needs and the Children and Families Act 2014 regime; • supporting clients with complaints, process management and outcomes; • advice and support with academy trust regulation including funding agreements, notices to improve, the application of the Academy Trust Handbook; • advice and support on decisions to exclude pupils/students, process and outcome; • admissions advice including oversubscription criteria development, local disputes and representations before the Schools Adjudicator; • providing advice and support on Freedom of Information and Data Protection requests; • governance advice for maintained schools and academy trusts, including drafting documents and liaising with the Department for Education; • commercial contract reviews and advices; • procurement advice; • academy transactional work; • conducting sector focused litigation, including Judicial Review, SEND Tribunal, and County Court proceedings. The successful candidates will: • have demonstrable experience in supporting an education team (newly-qualified candidates will have undertaken a seat in Education law); • manage their own caseload (with an appropriate level of Partner supervision depending on your level of PQE) providing sound commercial advice; • have excellent organisational skills with the ability to prioritise tasks and work under pressure.