Can anyone give me their experience of working in the government legal service?

[ApplesOranges]

Could anyone give me their experience of working for the GLS ie

• type of work
• flexibility
• pressures

-team spirit -autonomy

Many thanks!

Government Legal service- apologies for the acronym!

Bump

Not my experience but people I know:

1. Immigration
2. Private law
3. MOD

The team culture/pressure seems to vary considerably from team to team.

Seems quite flexible - encouraged to work at home, people do compressed hours, part time etc. Different experiences of stress levels depending on whether involved in a large group cases. There seems to be rotation every 3 years with an option to move into an advisory role.

I don't work for them but very VERY closely with them. Plenty of flexibility, hard work and long hours but many of them are part time and/or work from home either occasionally or regularly. Those teams I have worked with are all very friendly and nice. Type of work varies MASSIVELY!

Thank you! How is the support/supervision?

I can't give you first hand information but can pass on what I was told by a friend when I considered a move out of private practice a couple of years back. She said the pay's poor and (assuming you're currently in private practice) your colleagues will be less able and less committed to work than the people you are used to working with.

But that was one person's opinion and it was given to me two years ago!

Thanks - all interesting
I suppose the concern is not having sufficient support on unfamiliar technical points

Bump

Ooh this is me! I love it, it suits me down to the ground. We work hard but flexible working is totally supported, very collegiate working environment, varied and challenging work. You have to be prepared to work in unfamiliar areas - I've done prosecutions, trade law, telecoms, constitutional law and now justice things in my time. Pay and conditions have been stagnating - you have to be comfortable that you're likely to stay on the bottom of the scale for some time.

And i moved from a magic circle firm and would totally disagree on the calibre and commitment of colleagues. There are different motivations at play that's for sure, and people who balance other aspects of life, but some of the finest legal minds around. It is a huge and varied place though and difficult to generalise. Support varies too but generally better than my experience of private practice - particularly support for development etc.

Thank you ! How's support in terms of working in unfamiliar areas ie outside your comfort zone. Is everything peer review reviewed like private practice?

Not everything, no. I'm an advisory lawyer and work fairly autonomously though we recently had a peer review spot check thing. But I have a team leader I can run things by if unsure and I would supervise the grade 7s/legal officers that report to me more closely, especially when new. But it is a different type of law than private practice - often there are no direct precedents and it is down to risk assessment and judgment calls. We do drafting of secondary legislation and instructing Parliamentary counsel on Bill drafting too.

PS actually there is a peer review process for drafting.

Thanks!

I have worked closely with GLS for years and the pay is in no way comparable to private practice but you can get involved in some really interesting work. It's open to very flexible working practices which I can't imagine is matched by private law.

Good work, good atmosphere (of course there are arseholes in every office), poor pay. Long hours, not as long as Magic Circle, but flexible and sensible attitude - and when you go home, you are not worrying about the office overdraft. That's the Chancellor of the Exchequer 's problem.

Lol at the "less able" comment. Plenty of fairly dim witted people at law school went into the magic circle (they all used to get me to help with their homework!). Some of the brightest lawyers I know work for GLS.

Following with interest. I currently work in-house but have been eyeing up GLS roles.

My concern with it to be honest was being "out of depth" in the sense that you are not as specialised as in private practice, hence my question regarding peer reviews. Not wanting to go home with constant underlying anxiety about completely unfamiliar and tricky points, and no support!

Suppose that applies to in house generally

It's a toughie. There are times when you feel out of your depth i suppose, because these are decisions with far reaching consequences and there's no professional indemnity insurance to fall back on, but we advise on the basic of risk assessment so we rarely give a cast iron guarantee that there won't be a successful legal challenge, and for bigger issues it's a collective legal view that's reached. I also find there's less of a blame culture than i experienced in private practice and more of a focus on fixing things. That's not universally true of course, but my general perception.

@longestlurkerever I am so happy to hear from someone else in the universe who as heard of the parliamentary counsel. Literally no one I know outside of work has heard of them and they do such an important job!

I've not worked for them but did apply on one occasion (and then another job came up first before I went to interview). I would imagine they are very picky about who they recruit and therefore the calibre of the lawyers is very high.

Yes apparently they're one of the biggest employers of lawyers
Sounds a big change from private practice

Any other experiences? Thanks!

I'm a relative newbie, so I know what you mean about being out of your depth. I found that pretty much everyone expects that and will tell you not to worry. I work in a difficult and highly technical area of advisory, but I've been told "don't worry about it, we cover such a broad area you could be here 15 years and not be an expert on anything"! I think because the civil service encourages people to move around, there's no expectation of knowledge and there's an expectation that you'll spend your first few weeks "reading in". I've been hitting the textbooks hard for the first time since uni. I still haven't found my groove exactly as I'm very new and still need a lot of supervision, but I'm a lot more settled now than I was in the first month where I wondered if I'd last six weeks!!

In advisory you meet your policy clients, or they email a query, and you have to do the research and put together an answer that sounds reasonable and is a decent argument. Some areas are easier than others - a colleague who worked in education said you could become an expert on the Education Act relatively quickly, whereas with DExEU it's obviously all new ground to break. Litigation is more of a constant workflow than advisory which can be a lull during the purdah period for example.

Pros are obviously the hours, as everyone acknowledges family situations and working from home is encouraged. Colleagues are friendly and welcoming. There are some fantastically brilliant minds doing very intricate work. It's great if you want to have an inside view of how it all fits together. There's no pressure to dress or appear particularly corporate as long as you are neat, tidy and not flashy. Many younger staff do wear suits a lot, but lots don't.

Cons: the money if you've come from a big private practice (I haven't, so it's fine for me). The sensation of feeling out of depth is a bit overwhelming at times too, but when you can put into advice something you know is right even though you had never heard of the topic two days ago, it's a good feeling. Satisfying.