Vacancy: Senior Solicitor – Edinburgh

We’re looking for a committed and capable Senior Solicitor to provide high-quality, trauma-informed legal advice and representation in a busy, specialist legal aid environment. You’ll manage your own complex caseload as well as support your Head of Office to lead an impactful and collaborative team working at the heart of access to justice in Scotland.

The work of this role will be based in Edinburgh, and you will generally be required to work from the Edinburgh office a minimum of two days a week, subject to business needs. From time to time, you may also need to travel to geographic locations covered by other CLAO and PDSO offices.

Key responsibilities include:

• managing a high-volume and complex legal aid caseload with minimal supervision
• supporting office management and mentoring junior solicitors
• delivering specialist advice and representation in areas such as housing and homelessness law, child law, and mental health
• assisting with strategic legal and project work across CLAO’s national network.

To succeed in this role, you will need:

• extensive civil court and advocacy experience, with expertise in at least one CLAO core area
• strong leadership, mentoring, and case supervision skills
• a deep understanding of legal aid and a commitment to trauma-informed practice
• excellent legal research, communication, and organisational abilities.

About Civil Legal Assistance Office (CLAO)

CLAO is a network of publicly funded court solicitors and support staff employed by the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB). We help people with their civil law problems by providing advice and representation to legally aided clients within our core areas of work. In addition, we operate a referral service to other providers of legal assistance and offer second tier support and training to advice organisations. Our work involves developing partnership links and project work with local and national organisations operating within the geographical areas we cover.

CLAO is part of SLAB’s Client Legal Services Directorate, which also includes the Public Defence Solicitors’ Office (PDSO) and Solicitor Contact Line (SCL), making us Scotland’s largest multi-disciplinary legal aid practice and a unique place to work.

How to apply

Full details about the role and online application are available on our recruitment portal (external link).