Legal Support Officer Housing and Litigation Team – Brighton & Hove City Council, Hove Town Hall

Are you looking for an exciting and challenging new opportunity in legal services?

Do you have good accurate typing skills, strong administrative skills, organisational skills, and communication skills?

Would you like to support a team of lawyers and fee-earners within a professional and friendly legal team who undertake a variety of litigation and prosecution work?

If so, we would like to hear from you.

Our dynamic and innovative Local Authority legal team are seeking a talented legal support officer who has experience of providing administrative support.

For an informal discussion, please contact carol.haynes@brighton-hove.gov.uk or chris.kingham@brighton-hove.gov.uk  

Interview dates: Monday 9 November and Tuesday 10 November 2026

Permanent Role: Full-Time 37 hours per week

About the role

Brighton & Hove is an established Unitary Authority and is a major economic, social, and cultural force in the southeast region, with a vibrant, dynamic, and diverse community which makes the city of Brighton & Hove truly unique.

We have a progressive legal team delivering an exceptional legal service on behalf of Brighton and Hove City Council. This legal team values imagination, creativity, a strong work ethic as well as championing and working collaboratively with its diverse communities. This has led the Legal Services team to have achieved many awards and successes, including winning the 2024 LLG Legal Team of the year and being recognised by Lexcel as an excellent, well-led service. We are a professional, friendly, and rewarding team.        

You will

• have the ability to work independently and as part of a team providing support to lawyers and senior lawyers who manage demanding caseloads;
  
  
• be computer literate and preferably have experience of using Office productivity tools such as Word, Excel, and Teams;
  
  
• undertake various office tasks such as photocopying; scanning; word processing; proof reading; open matters on a case management system; updating files; and checking various Orders;
  
  
• have strong organisational skills which require a methodical approach to work and an awareness of the need to pay attention to detail to keep orderly files and records;
  
  
• have effective communication skills to effectively interact with colleagues, clients, members of the public, councillors, and others in person, through correspondence, over the telephone and MS Teams; and
  
  
• deliver professional legal services inclusively to our residents, businesses, visitors, and staff.

Encouraging a diverse workforce
Our city is known and loved for its diversity. Not only is the mixture of people, culture and skills vital to the economic and social development of the city, it's what makes Brighton & Hove such a great place to live, work and visit. We are committed to developing and retaining a workforce that is representative of the diverse communities we serve so we welcome applications from individuals from all backgrounds.

Find out more about our commitment to being a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone can achieve their potential by reading about our fair and inclusive actions, our anti-racism strategy and the work we are doing to encourage a diverse workforce (brighton-hove.gov.uk).

Why work for us?
As a council, we want to:
• be connected
• be confident
• be innovative and creative
• be diverse and inclusive
• be healthy and psychologically safe
For more information about our values and the benefits of working at the council, visit Why work for us  which gives details of our wellbeing support, our benefits including leave and pensions as well as details of our training and development.

How to apply
Please read our Apply for a job at the council pages carefully. They give you all the guidance you need to complete your application as well as information on what will happen after you’ve submitted your application and at interview.

As part of your application, you will need to provide your education and career history and answer some application/shortlisting questions. Your answers to the application/shortlisting questions are the most important part of your application as they will be used in the shortlisting process to assess whether you meet the essential requirements for the role that are set out in the person specification and to decide whether you should be offered an interview. Before you start your application, please read our Shortlisting questions guidance (brighton-hove.gov.uk) as this gives important advice which will increase your chance of success in the shortlisting process.

AI advice for candidates 
We are interested in hearing about your experience and skills in your own words. While we value people who know how to use AI, we ask that you minimise using it in your application.

We are keen to hear how your experience and skills align to our values and the skills and experience needed to perform well in our roles with clear real examples from you. To support you in this, we have guidance on using the STAR model which can help you ensure you are telling us your whole story. We also provide clarity on the skills we are looking for in our adverts and in the job description/person specification attached to each job advert.

All the applications we receive are read by at least two hiring managers and we do not use AI in this process. Our experience of reading applications is that those that have heavily used AI contain generic paragraphs that are strikingly similar to other applicants’ responses. This makes it extremely difficult to differentiate between applications, and doesn't give us enough evidence of your individual skills. There is a risk that we will therefore not be able to shortlist you. Instead, we recommend you ensure your application stands out by presenting clear examples of your actual skills and experiences in your own words. 

Additional information
Your starting salary will be pro rata if the above position is less than 37 hours or term-time only.

We are a workplace that supports flexibility and employee wellbeing in the way we work whilst providing the best service for our customers. Team and service working arrangements are designed to support both employee work life balance and team collaboration. These would be part of your individual working arrangements alongside any personal preference agreed with your manager in advance of joining. Your contractual location will be the designated council office for your team and travel to and from your contractual location would be at your own expense.

Recruitment scam alert 

Some third-party websites may be using details from our vacancies to advertise roles that are not authorised by us. To protect your personal information, please ensure you verify the job details and application route through the  Brighton & Hove City Council jobs board. 

We will never ask candidates to pay a fee, purchase a subscription, or make any payment to apply for one of our vacancies.