News & Events

Listed below are the national news items and national events.

The LLG Grapevine - Week 39 Available Now
Publish date: 29/03/2021
Talking Law in Local Government
The letter to Council Leaders from Luke Hall MP received yesterday (25th March 2021) does not change the need for our court hearing, in fact if anything, it makes the need for it more pressing.
Publish date: 26/03/2021
Councils are already actively considering the options the minister has suggested, including looking at alternative larger meeting venues at significant extra cost. The proposal to delegate significant decisions to officers is likely to be viewed as undermining democratic accountability due to the fact that such decisions are not subject to direct member involvement. Given the circumstances authorities find themselves in due to the imminent loss of virtual meeting provision, they now face unpalatable decisions, which include restricting member attendance and a reduction in members roles in decision making, whilst attempting to keep the machinery of local government moving. LLG & ADSO remain fully committed to presenting our case at the High Court Hearing timetabled to be heard before the end of April 2021.
Memorandum Regarding Exemption from Authorisation of Local Authority Legal Teams
Publish date: 26/03/2021
A memorandum has been jointly prepared by Lawyers in Local Government with input from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) on exemption for authorisation under Section 15 Legal Services Act 2007. Thanks to the hard work of our President, Quentin Baker and Abdus Choudhury, Deputy Director, Legal and Governance at One source, together with the significant contribution of Fiona Anthony from nplaw, who worked hard to ensure guidance as to the circumstances in which this approach to regulation will be appropriate, we now have some clarity on this historical issue.
Introducing Work Experience Week
Publish date: 26/03/2021
Are you a student looking for work experience? interested in working in law in local government’ Lawyers In Local Government are delighted to announce our new national work experience programme. Students will experience first hand the varied day to day life of a lawyer within a local authority.
LLG Webinar: Building Safety Bill
Publish date: 26/03/2021
Doug Rhodes and Stuart Brown of Trowers & Hamlin will be our guest speakers on this weeks webinar and will provide an overview of the timeline leading up to the draft Building Safety Bill and a recap of the key issues included in the bill, including the new regulator, the dutyholder regime and the in-occupation duties arising
LLG & ADSO OBTAIN PERMISSION TO MOVE FORWARD WITH THE COURT DECLARATION ON VIRTUAL MEETING PROVISION BEFORE 6th MAY 2021.
Publish date: 24/03/2021
ADSO and LLG (along with Hertfordshire County Council) have received permission to expedite our claim for a declaration in the High Court which will provide certainty for local authorities on whether they can continue to hold meetings remotely past the 6th May 2021 deadline, due to the expiry of the Local Authorities and Police and Crime Panels (Coronavirus) (Flexibility of Local Authority Police and Crime Panel Meetings) (England and Wales) Regulations (No.392).
The LLG Grapevine - Week 38 Available Now
Publish date: 22/03/2021
Talking Law in Local Government
The LLG Grapevine - Week 37 Available Now
Publish date: 22/03/2021
Talking Law in Local Government
LLG Webinar: Employee Vaccinations
Publish date: 22/03/2021
Can employers require employees to get vaccinated? How do we manage testing and employees refusing to go to work? Join us at our free webinar on March 3rd 12-1pm.
Last chance to respond to the Centre for Governance & Scrutiny's annual survey.
Publish date: 22/03/2021
The CfGS annual survey closes to responses at the end of this week. With a particular section of questions on remote meetings it would be helpful to LLG if you could complete the survey the results of which will be shared with us.

Blog

16 April 2021

Publish date: 16/04/2021

Lockdown placed inevitable pressure on lawyers within local government. With new covid laws, policy and process seemingly being drafted every hour, lawyers battled with increasingly challenging workloads coupled with the advent of entirely remote decision making. Crisis management kicked in, and with the medium and long-term picture increasingly unclear, the casualties were the law graduates of 2020 as work experience opportunities vanished and trainee recruitment went on hold.

Fast forward to 2021, where ongoing uncertainty as to when and how we will return to the workplace leads to hesitancy in offering work placements and traineeships. For the law graduates of 2021, the landscape still remains bleak.

At LLG we recognise that our future reality will always be different from our past. We see little sense in continuing to put futures on hold until things return to 'normal'. As well as lost opportunities for graduates, there will inevitably be a gap in the number of newly qualified lawyers within local authorities in a couple of years if the pipeline is turned off. We want to kickstart graduate opportunities in our legal departments. What better time could there be to launch a national Work Experience Week?

We aim to conquer the fears around remote engagement and supervision of students, giving clear advice as to how to give context for a task, set expectations and timescales, and then put aside time for discussion and feedback. We know that as well as shadowing, students seek real work where they feel they have made a difference, so we will give hints and tips as to how to make that happen.

Work placements help students overcome that difficult first step of getting meaningful experience. It gives local authorities an early sight of potential candidates for traineeships of the future. It can be a tool for developing supervision and management skills in younger staff members. Importantly, those students will see how varied and engaging the role is and want to join us. Thus, the pipeline keeps flowing….

Our commitment to equality and diversity runs deep, and we will measure each step of the selection process to ensure it is inclusive.

Understanding the need to manage the pressure on legal departments, we aim to provide balance. LLG is undertaking the recruitment and selection of students, and carrying some of the load during the week. We ask local authorities to look after the students each morning, whilst in the afternoon LLG takes over with a varied programme of webinars from specialist lawyers, workshops on real life legal issues, and roundtables to provide opportunity for debate, along with skill training on application writing, interview technique, and making good first impressions.

We aim to put work experience back on track for our lawyers of the future, not just this year, but every year. Next year, we are hopeful of taking things one step further to launch a national graduate recruitment scheme for lawyers in local government.

With legal departments often overworked and under resourced, we need to have a long-term vision of sustainability. It's the least we can do.

Deborah Evans

CEO

Deborah.Evans@llg.org.uk

LLG legal talent work experience week takes place on the 5^th – 9^th July. Applications are invited from students from the19^th April. Please contact legaltalent@llg.org.uk