Solicitor/Legal Executive - Elderly & Vulnerable Client Unit

Bell Lamb & Joynson Solicitors; Northampton; On-site; GBP 32,000 - 42,000; Full time

Job summary

Bell Lamb & Joynson Solicitors in Northampton is seeking a Team Member for the Elderly & Vulnerable Client Unit. The role involves handling deputyship work, meeting clients at home or in care settings, and supporting families during challenging times with sound judgement and empathetic contact.

Reporting to the Unit Head, you will contribute to a busy practice, prioritise complex workloads, and grow into a defined area of this work as your own.

Responsibilities

• Deputyship applications
• Knowledge of the benefit and care system
• Ongoing management of clients’ property and financial affairs all carried out to the standards the Office of the Public Guardian expects of a professional deputy.
• Understanding a client’s financial position and what care funding or benefits they are entitled to
• Making sure a family’s practical worries are being addressed and not just their paperwork
• Knowing when something does not feel right and needs a safeguarding conversation rather than a straightforward instruction

Job description

We are currently seeking a dynamic individual to join our well-established Elderly & Vulnerable Client Unit (EVCU) based at our Northampton Office. As a Team Member, you will play a pivotal role in providing exceptional service within our busy team, ensuring unparalleled levels of client care.

This role is crucial to the success of our experienced unit who have a demanding workload. This means that you must be able to handle pressure and be able to prioritise your daily workload. Closely supervised while you need it, genuinely trusted when you do not, with the ambition and judgement to grow into a defined area of this work as your own. If you are currently a “safe pair of hands” for somebody else’s caseload and want to become the person other people come to, this is exactly that opportunity.

You will report to and be supervised by Suzanne Evans (Partner & Head of the Unit). Day-to-day, that means real cases from early on – not just watching from the sidelines. You will get involved with clients at home and in care settings, often meeting people, and their families, at one of the harder moments in their lives, so a great deal of this job is judgement and bedside manner as much as it is law.

• Key Responsibilities of this role:

• Deputyship applications

• Knowledge of the benefit and care system

• Ongoing management of clients’ property and financial affairs all carried out to the standards the Office of the Public Guardian expects of a professional deputy.

• Understanding a client’s financial position and what care funding or benefits they are entitled to

• Making sure a family’s practical worries are being addressed and not just their paperwork

• Knowing when something does not feel right and needs a safeguarding conversation rather than a straightforward instruction