The thick of it
Spending your entire training contract working for one client may sound a little dull, but not if that client is Her Majesty's Government. That's exactly what GLS lawyers do. The government employs around 2,000 lawyers, who provide policy-makers with advice on issues as diverse as terrorism, the Localism Bill, EU directives and the standards of abattoirs. They also defend the government in all kinds of public and private legal disputes. Think of a major political issue and you can be pretty sure a GLS lawyer has been involved with it.
Getting a training contract with the GLS is an increasingly tough – its application process is now called a 'competition'. In 2011 it received 2,800 applications for just 20 training contracts. The application is based on competency and skill, not educational background or past work experience. “Throughout the application, no one sees any more than the applicant's name and whether they are a law or a non-law student,” James Murphy of the GLS Secretariat told us. We note that a large number of GLS trainees are second-careers or had previous substantive work experience. Pupil barristers are also recruited –see our Chambers Report on the GLS pupillage.
Trainees work for specific government departments. At time of our calls, eight out of 23 trainees worked for the Treasury Solicitor's department (TSol) – which is essentially the “law firm for the government, our clients are government departments.” Others are employed directly by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the Home Office, the Department for Work and Pensions/Department of Health (DWP/H), the Department for Transport (DfT), the Department for Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). After the training contract ends, those who stay on spend two years as a 'legal officer' before becoming a Grade 7 lawyer.
Trainees complete a typical four-seat rotation such as you might find in a private law firm. HMRC trainees usually complete their entire training contract in that department, while those at the MoJ, BIS and the like usually do one seat with TSol to gain their contentious experience. TSol trainees usually take one private law and one public law seat, and then spend one or two seats in other departments including Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Education (DfE), the Cabinet Office, the Treasury, the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the MoJ and the Attorney General's Office (AGO).
Trainees indicate which two departments they would want to join while applying. Not everyone gets their first choice, but our sources were eventually “grateful” and “happy” with where they ended up. Within the departments, trainees don't choose seats. “We are just placed where there is need.”
Take no prisoners
TSol “definitely has more of a law firm feel – when the phone rings it will not be a nice cuddly policy colleague, but may be a hard-nosed commercial solicitor.” Its lawyers have billing targets and “there is an emphasis on justifying your work commercially, because the clock is ticking.” It's a great home for real litigation junkies. “I had my caseload of judicial reviews from the start. It's a daunting experience, but you learn so much about how cases are organised.” TSol employs around 520 lawyers and handles both public law (acting for the government as a public authority) and private law (acting for the government as a property owner, employer contractor, etc.). Trainees sit in teams including immigration; employment; public law and planning; prisons; property; and bona vacantia (an obscure area of law which deals with individuals who died intestate). In planning, you might “deal with statutory reviews in the High Court of decisions made by planning inspectors,” while in immigration the work includes final appeals against decisions on deportations and the return of refugees. The prisons team deals with MoJ cases and recently defended a challenge to the segregation of terror suspects in Belmarsh prison. “In the prisons team, I has a caseload of 35 matters,” said one source. “I handled judicial reviews related to individual prisoners. I was taking instructions and drafting defences.” Private law work includes employment and personal injury. “We deal with servicemen claims for the MoD, as well as claims by employees of the Highways Agency, the UK Border Agency and the Food Standards Agency.”
At HMRC (don't worry, it's “so much more than just tax”) trainees can sit in teams including tax enforcement and insolvency; ratings and valuation; business tax advisory; personal tax litigation; and employment. Insolvencies – including “highly publicised football team bankruptcies” – are creating a lot of work. “Sometimes I have to go along to the bankruptcy court with 20 files and apply for bankruptcy for them all,” one trainee told us. Lawyers also worked on the recent VAT hike and other tax work including “drafting secondary legislation” and “claims in the High Court or County Court against taxpayers who broke previous settlements.” And don't forget that “every taxpayer in the country has the potential to get into debt to HMRC.” Trainees might also get a chance to try their hand at advocacy in an Employment Tribunal.
All politics is local
Most of the work in the ministerial departments (ie the departments led by a government minister, like Vince Cable in BIS or Ken Clarke in the MoJ) is basically the provision of policy advice. “In TSol, the clients are somewhere outside at the other end of an email. Here, they might suddenly be right there at your desk.” However, trainees also help draft statutory instruments and Parliamentary bills. DCLG lawyers have been working on the Localism Bill a cornerstone of Dave's Big Society, it is “aimed at decentralising power to Local Authorities.” One source told us: “Your task is basically to create legislation. You are instructed by policy officials. Then there is a lot of research and you write advice to Parliamentary counsel, who draft clauses for the bill. As it goes through Parliament there will be amendments, and you continue to advise Parliamentary counsel.” Of course, some issues can be more parochial. “A lot of people write in with strange queries about allotments,” one trainee revealed. “It's a very emotive subject actually. Unfortunately the relevant legislation is extremely old and difficult to interpret.”
BIS trainees work on import and export regulations, trade, manufacturing and higher education matters. “After the change of government, we advised on the initial stages of new legislation to reform the Employment Tribunal System – that involved a lot of research based around Article Six of the European Convention on Human Rights.” Europe was often mentioned by trainees, as “much of what we work on is heavily influenced by European legislation.” Trainees also mentioned a lot of “collaboration” within and between departments. “You have to think about other departments' considerations. Some people might be irritated by a document having to go through 25 iterations before it's published. But it makes the finished project the work of a greater group. And after all, we are advising the people who run the country.”
We've just talked about some of the departments and some of the seats here. There are many more –head to the bonus features to read about some of them.
GLS trainees are closely involved in the creation of ground-breaking and “radical” litigation – “You see things you worked on in the newspaper or reported on TV.” They also get a great amount of responsibility while working on these projects – drafting, advising clients, advocacy. “You do have to do mundane tasks, but that's because all lawyers do their own filing, bundling and proofreading here.”
England expects...
Trainees singled out several reasons for choosing the GLS over private practice. “Public service,” was a phrase we heard a few times. Many of our interviewees had previously worked in the public sector or in public interest jobs. “Everyone is interested in politics and there are people here from across the political spectrum, but,” and this is important, “no one expresses any political allegiances during work.” Here's how one proud source described their attitude to public service: “I have a duty as a civil servant to serve the government impartially, and a duty as a solicitor to act in the best interests of my client – the government.” All our sources had enjoyed the challenge of witnessing and working through a change of government. “It didn't affect my work greatly, certainly not in a negative way,” one source told us. “I have been impressed at how different and radical some of the new ministers' ideas have been.” Trainees also shared an interest in public law, the machinery of government and the creation of legislation, one saying: “I wanted to be lawyer, not a deal machine.”
Unlike those in private practice, GLS lawyers are expected to be generalists. “The whole thrust of the GLS is that you move teams during your career. That really goes against building up a specialism.” Some sources did suggest there might be a greater drive towards specialism in future.
David Scissorhands
Another classic attraction of the public sector is job security. This perception has now been massively challenged by the coalition's spending cuts. “It's no longer possible to think that working in the public sector guarantees a job for life,” one trainee told us. “I did have anxieties about my job when the civil service recruitment freeze came in.” Happily, in 2011 there were jobs for all qualifiers; and the GLS is still recruiting on the basis that it will keep on all its trainees if they are up to scratch. However, the cuts have taken their toll and “people have lost their jobs.” Most, however, have gone through “natural wastage” and “voluntary redundancies” so “morale hasn't been particularly affected.” Advisory teams were hit harder than more than litigious ones. “TSol has been more insulated,” we heard, “because its budget comes from other departments paying us for work.” TSol has been restructured and streamlined, and trainees are not counting their chickens, saying: “I don't think we have even started the tough bit yet in terms of redundancies.”
Trainees do still enjoy that other perk of a public sector job: a good work-life balance. They usually work nine to ten-hour days. “The hours are pretty regular. The latest I have ever stayed is 10pm. That is exceptional. As a rule I'm out between 5.30 and 7pm.” Flexible working times and part-time schedules are also common. There are fears this work-life balance may be threatened by a decrease in personnel, although one source told us: “Lawyers having to do the same or more work with less people is not something I have seen yet.” It remains a possibility that the going will become tougher as the cuts begin to bite.
Party games
“There's no stiff upper lip, 'let's all get through the war together' feeling here. The civil service hasn't been like that for a while, I don't think,” one trainee mused. Litigation teams tend to be more “bustling.” In TSol, “there is the odd stressful moment when a trial is on. But in terms of being hard-nosed, we are not even on the nursery slopes compared to some places in the City. The civil service is all about being there because you want to be there. People feel quite privileged to work here.” Advice teams tend to be “slower-paced” and “quieter,” as work “is not all driven by money or billable hours.” That said: “The lawyers do work exceptionally hard. My supervisor regularly works seven days a week. We work until the job is done.”
Trainees are “definitely close,” and “tight-knit,” especially within TSol. “We have quite a lot of events – including a sports day – where we can mix with the wider GLS.” Many of these are organised by the trainee network committee, which organises monthly drinks and has also put on “chocolate-making and whisky-tasting events.” The trainee group “still regularly has drinks” but there are “maybe less socials than there used to be.” We hear the committee recently started organising lectures: “There was one about working with ministers and some senior lawyers told us some great anecdotes.” For those who want more, many teams head out for lunches and dinners, and the Union of Government Lawyers, Youngish (UGLY) organises regular events.
And finally...
If you have an interest in the machinations of government and public law then the Government Legal Service offers the best training contract you could wish for.