Associate - Advisory Information Law

Capsticks Solicitors LLP; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working

Job summary

Capsticks Solicitors LLP seeks a qualified information governance lawyer to join its London team. The role involves handling high‑profile data protection, FOI, and privacy matters for NHS, regulators and other organisations, with opportunities to work with ICO and other bodies.

You will develop client relationships, advise on governance and regulatory issues, and participate in training and business development within a collaborative, hybrid-working environment.

Qualifications

• Knowledge of data protection, freedom of information, privacy/human rights issues
• Experience in information governance and related regulatory matters desirable
• Ability to develop client relationships and deliver practical advice

Responsibilities

• Support information governance work for NHS, regulators, blue-light and housing providers
• Advise on ICO reporting, data sharing agreements, and confidentiality matters
• Draft and review governance policies and data processing agreements
• Litigate data protection matters in conjunction with Claims division
• Provide training and assist BD activities

Skills

Client relationships

Advisory skills

Attention to detail

Education

Qualified solicitor/barrister/chartered legal executive

Job description

Location - London

Hybrid Working

THE TEAM

The information law currently comprises 6 specialist lawyers based in London and around the country, within a wider team of around 50 advisory lawyers (many of whom have an information law element of their practice). The Advisory Division helps our clients across a wide range of issues, including:

• Litigation: including Court of Protection, judicial review and mental health tribunal matters
• Mental Health and Mental Capacity law, to include Deprivation of Liberty
• Inquests
• Public law, advising commissioning and service provider organisations on governance, powers and responsibilities, as well as funding and treatment decision making.
• Governance and patient safety investigations
• CQC and related health care regulation
• Information law

We are committed to recruiting the best people to maintain our market leading position and lawyers of most interest to us are those who have the ability to actively develop client relationships and deliver clear, focused and practical advice. In return, the firm prides itself on being able to offer top quality work, excellent career prospects and a healthy work life balance in a supportive working environment.

THE ROLE

The firm is looking to expand its existing specialist information law team and seeks a self-motivated and ambitious qualified lawyer (solicitor, barrister or chartered legal executive) to join us. The work is dealing with important and sensitive information governance cases for the NHS, professional regulators, blue-light organisations and housing providers. The successful candidate will therefore need to be a confident lawyer who is dynamic, self-motivated and able to develop the skills to work with senior stakeholders in client organisations, as well as the ICO, other regulatory bodies and the other side in commercial contracts, or claimants and their representatives, representatives in contentious matters.

You will ideally already have some knowledge of working for one or more of our client groups, or information law legal work (broadly, data protection, freedom of information, privacy/human rights issues, and common law confidentiality matters)

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

As a developing area of the firm’s work, this is an excellent opportunity to carve out a super-specialism within the work of the team, as well as to work on a wide range of information law matters. Your day-to-day work could include:

• Supporting our clients with their responses to data subject access or other information rights requests.
• Breach and incident management, including advising on reporting matters to the ICO and dealing with ICO investigations, and notifying affected data subjects.
• Medical devices and artificial intelligence law.
• Advising on broader information law issues for our client groups – a typical day could include advising on the disclosure of HIV status information to a patient’s relative, advising a housing association on introducing body-worn video to support staff safety, and the use of WhatsApp messages in HR investigations.
• Drafting and reviewing information governance policies and procedures.
• Drafting and agreeing data sharing or data processing agreements or clauses, or advising on confidentiality agreements.
• Advising on specialist legislation, for instance powers of disclosure under regulatory law, RIPA issues, the requirements of information standards given under s. 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012.
• Litigating data protection cases, including in conjunction with our Claims division.
• Drafting FOI responses or internal reviews, responding to ICO complaints, and dealing with First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights) litigation– we have an excellent track record in supporting clients in this sphere. There is an opportunity to undertake oral and written advocacy as part of this work.
• Providing training and supporting BD activities.

There may also be an opportunity to get to work on other matters handled by the Advisory division and the firm more generally, including mental capacity/mental health law, inquests, intellectual property, or public law work. We regularly have secondment opportunities with our clients.

SKILL SET

The ideal candidate will have a good eye for technical detail, an ability to breakdown complex issues into easy-to-understand and practically useful advice, and a genuine interest in helping our clients help people and do the right thing.

Capsticks is an inclusive employer

At Capsticks we value diversity and we are committed to creating an inclusive and supportive working environment where everyone is able to be themselves and reach their full potential. Capsticks is committed to providing equal opportunities for all and therefore we welcome the unique contributions that you can bring in terms of your education, background, culture, ethnicity, race, nationality, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, neurodiversity, religion and beliefs.

We will make reasonable adjustments to our application and interview process to ensure that you have the best chance of success. We understand that there's not a "one size fits all" approach to adjustments so our team will work with you individually to understand more about your requirements. If you have any questions please contact our Recruitment team on: ([e-mail])