Legal Officer

What you’ll be responsible for

Reporting to a Solicitor, the Legal Officer will focus on supporting developer agreement work, including the preparation and administration of legal agreements using established precedents and processes. This role offers an excellent opportunity to develop practical legal drafting, stakeholder management and matter progression skills, with scope over time to broaden into other areas of legal support across the General Counsel team. We are working towards having a team of multi-skilled Legal Officers but the initial focus of this role means that it will be advantageous for candidates to have experience of supporting non‑contentious work, including contract administration and drafting simple agreements, conveyancing activities or other non-contentious property work. 

You will support the delivery of one or more legal activities to enable Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water to deliver its strategic and operational objectives in a lawful, ethical and commercially sound manner.

Key Responsibilities of the role:

• Utilise precedent documents to draft legal agreements and other documents, including sewer adoption, sewer diversion agreements and deeds of easement.


• Dealing with registration, post completion formalities at Land Registry.


• Identifying and obtaining relevant documents from the Land Registry.


• The management of workflow, moving matters forward to meet deadlines, and escalating any issues of concern.


• Coordinate internal stakeholders to gather information or documents relevant to legal matters.


• Investigating and advising on responsibility for land, property, and pipework


• Corresponding and negotiating with customers and third parties


• Drafting legal notices.


• Prepare first drafts of routine litigation documents (e.g., pre-action letters and acknowledgements; pleadings; correspondence with courts, experts, or counsel; attendance notes and file notes; and draft instructions to counsel or expert).


• Support Solicitors at hearings, mediations, or conferences.


• Assist with preparing costs budgets or schedules of costs.


• Support drafting and finalising settlement agreements, tomlin orders, or consent orders.


• Provide administrative support to the Legal Team, including diary management, file organisation, and matter tracking.


• Maintain accurate records, logs, and legal databases.


• Support continuous improvement initiatives within the Legal Team (e.g., process improvements, template management).


• Undertake other legal support tasks as directed.

About you

The following are essential requirements for the recruitment of the role:

Qualifications & Experience

• A relevant degree, professional qualification or experience in a similar role.


• Previous experience working as a legal officer, paralegal, legal assistant, or similar role in-house or in private practice.


• Previous experience in one or more of the following areas:


• Experience supporting non contentious work, including contract administration and drafting simple agreements.


• Conveyancing activities or other non-contentious property work.

Knowledge & Skills

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to draft clearly and concisely.


• Strong organisational and time management skills, able to balance multiple deadlines.


• High attention to detail.


• Legal research skills, including the ability to summarise complex information.


• Proficient in Microsoft 365.


• Able to work professionally with colleagues and internal stakeholders.


• Problem solving mindset, able to identify issues and escalate appropriately.


• Collaborative, supportive and able to play part in a team.


• Professional discretion, maintaining confidentiality and handling sensitive information appropriately.


• Ability to follow instructions accurately while also taking initiative where appropriate.


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  Ability to communicate professionally and effectively with customers, third parties and stakeholders, including managing difficult conversations where required.
  
  

Good to know

If you would like further information on this role, please contact [email protected]

Please note, we may close this role sooner if required. We may also extend the original closing date depending on interest.

Due to the nature of the industry, we require satisfactory references, post offer medical clearance, and a criminal records Basic Disclosure check on all new employees joining the business. For some roles there may be additional checks and security clearance required, and this offer is subject all checks being satisfied. You will receive further information on how to complete these checks via email once you have accepted this offer.

Benefits

As well as a market competitive salary, 34 days  annual leave (pro rata, including public holidays), we offer a range of employee benefits and rewards including:

• Variable pay schemes (your salary will always stay the same, but depending on the performance of the company you could receive a yearly bonus)


• Enhanced employer pension contributions – Up to 11% employer contributions


• Enhanced family friendly policies


• Progression opportunities, including the ability to apply for funded training and coaching and mentoring programmes


• Reduction on gym memberships and high street shopping


• Cycle to work scheme


• Car-leasing scheme


• Health CashBack scheme


• An employee assistance programme for employees and their immediate family

Whilst also working for a not-for profit company that truly cares about earning the trust of customers everyday, and about looking after our beautiful environment.
 

Who we are

Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water keep 3 million people healthy each day with safe, reliable water, and take away wastewater to clean, before returning it safely to our beautiful rivers and seas.

To be able to deliver high quality, essential services which help to protect the health of our customers, colleagues and our environment, we need the right people to deliver on our vision.  This is achieved by living our core values and demonstrating the core behaviours that underpin them.  The security of our people, assets and information is key to us, so we are looking for people who understand and comply with the company’s required security objectives.

We know that the most successful teams are the most diverse teams. Equality, diversity and inclusion provide the very foundation to our culture at Welsh Water. We want every individual to feel confident, proud and able to bring their whole selves to work. 

To ensure an improved representation in our workforce, applications are particularly welcome from minority groups including Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people, Females, LGBT+, Non-binary and people with disabilities. Together we continue to build a workplace that not only celebrates the diverse voices of our colleagues but also represents each customer we serve.

In essence, ours is a company based on trust, openness, respect, commitment and honesty. A company that our colleagues are proud to work for.