BLOG: Is the PILS Legal Support Manager role a good fit for me?
You’ve read the job description. Now, let’s explore what the Legal Support Manager job really looks like — and whether it’s the right fit for you.
The process of searching for a new job can be exhausting. It’s a process of change that combines personal, emotional and financial factors, all wrapped up in a timeline that you can’t control.
It’s all about aligning your values, dreams and expectations with a new opportunity.
Most of all, job searches often leave you saturated with questions.
What happens after you hit ‘apply now’?
Will I get an interview?
Will I get the job?
Matching your interests and experience to the list of essential and desirable skills in the personal specification is just one – albeit important – part of the process. In order to be eligible for interview for the Legal Support Manager role, your application form will need to show PILS how you meet each of the essential criteria.
Until you are employed by an organisation, it can sometimes be difficult to know why particular skills are listed in personal specifications in the first place. PILS staff have been through similar job searches ourselves, so that is why we have included a ‘why?’ column in our recruitment pack. Hopefully, it gives you more detailed reasoning behind why we consider the criteria to be essential.
What if I do get the job? Will I actually enjoy it?
That can often be a more difficult question to find the answer to when you are in the middle of a recruitment process. In reality, what items will fill your daily to-do list? And will those tasks fill you with excitement in turn?
Finding a good match
Whether it is searching for a pro bono lawyer with the ideal mix of legal knowledge to tackle a particular question from our members. Or figuring out which legal process will solve a problem most effectively for our member organisations and the communities they serve, finding a good match is what PILS’ work is all about.
That is why we are also sharing a few examples of what the Legal Support Manager’s diary could contain to help you gauge what your average week might look like:
- weekly PILS team meeting (in office)
- introductory call with a potential new NGO member organisation (over Zoom)
- drafting instructions for a barrister who has agreed to provide a PILS member with a legal opinion
- Discussing the power of public interest litigation with law students as part of a panel (on the university’s campus)
- Meeting with the PILS Director to discuss the latest applications for support received from our members
- Supporting a member organisation when a judgment in their judicial review is being handed down (at the Royal Courts of Justice)
- Phone call with PILS Senior Engagement Lead to finalise logistics for a training event you’re running for PILS members
Questions to consider
If you are still wondering whether to apply for the PILS Legal Support Manager vacancy, here are some extra questions to consider:
How do I approach problem-solving? Do I like to tackle problems with curiosity?
At PILS, the legal queries that reach us are usually ones that there isn’t a clear-cut answer to. Our Legal Support Manager will have to critically analyse the applications for support that our members submit. The role will really suit someone who enjoys thinking creatively and exploring legal solutions with curiosity.
Could I guide someone through a legal process, such as judicial review proceedings, with confidence?
You don’t have to have been part of the legal team as a solicitor or barrister. If you can apply legal knowledge to real-life scenarios and are eager to share that understanding to empower the organisations in our membership, you’ll enjoy the Legal Support Manager role.
Am I passionate about human rights issues? Do I relish conversations about challenging the status quo and creating change?
PILS is working towards a society in which people have equal access to the legal system and where human rights and equality are protected and realised. That’s an ambitious vision but if you share our appetite for defending the public interest, then this role could be for you.