3+ PQE Litigation Solicitor/Senior Solicitor
Job description
Original text imported from Reed
Are you Looking to work with an award-winning local firm that puts their clients and staff at the forefront of all they do?
We are excited to be looking for a Litigation Solicitor/Legal Executive to join a growing, friendly and supportive team.
Experience & Skills
- Achieve billing, time and fee earning targets set and co-operate with the firm’s credit control arrangements
- Proven project and time management skills
- A confident and professional manner
- Work effectively within a team but also as a leader
- Be professional, organised, competent, enthusiastic, and ambitious.
- Be able to work independently and as part of a team with other fee earners, providing advice and assistance whenever needed to develop knowledge and skills within the rest of the team.
You will have strong experience in dealing with all manner of commercial and civil disputes with excellent attention to detail, including:
- organising, drafting and preparation of witness statements and trial bundles;
- organising and preparation of trial bundles;
- advocacy experience in County and High Courts;
- dealing with Counsel;
- costs management and budgets;
- CPR rules and other procedural-related matters;
Benefits:
- Agile working (up to 40% working from home)
- 25 days' holiday (FTE) (plus statutory holidays)
- Pension scheme
- Death-in-service/Life assurance benefit scheme
- Critical illness insurance cover
- Eye care voucher
- A structured career progression plan tailored to you and with the aim of enabling you to achieve your career goals and ambitions including up to Partnership.
Salary dependant on experience
For more information, please apply with your CV.
Key skills
AI-extracted from the job advert
Application advice
5 AI-generated recommendations to maximise your chances.
⭐ Lead your CV with a Personal Statement that explicitly names 'commercial and civil litigation' and 'County and High Court advocacy', as these are the first substantive requirements listed in the advert.
📊 Quantify your billing history: e.g. 'Consistently achieved 90% of a £180k annual billing target across a 3-year period', as the advert specifically calls out billing and fee-earning targets.
🎯 Dedicate a bullet point to CPR procedural experience — list specific Parts (e.g. Part 36, Part 26 costs budgeting) to pass ATS filters and demonstrate procedural depth.
📝 Highlight trial bundle and witness statement drafting with volume metrics: e.g. 'Drafted and organised 25+ trial bundles for County and High Court hearings in 2023', directly mirroring the advert's listed duties.
🤝 Include a career progression note — the firm offers a Partnership track, so briefly signal your ambition toward senior leadership to align with their structured progression plan.
Suggested CV bullets
3 bullets our AI drafted for this specific advert, mirroring its ATS keywords.
Add these 3 bullets under your most recent experience:
- •Managed a caseload of 35 concurrent commercial and civil disputes, achieving 94% of a £165k annual billing target and reducing aged debt by 18% through proactive credit control liaison.
- •Drafted and organised 28 trial bundles for County Court and High Court hearings in 2023, including witness statements and skeleton arguments, with zero adjournments attributable to documentation errors.
- •Prepared and filed CPR Part 26 costs budgets across 12 multi-track matters, securing judicial approval on first submission in 10 cases and saving clients an average of £8,500 in disputed costs.
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Letter preview — tailored to Reed
Dear Hiring Manager,
The 3+ PQE Litigation Solicitor opportunity at your Central Bedfordshire firm stood out immediately — specifically the breadth of commercial and civil dispute work and the expectation of County and High Court advocacy. Having built a practice around CPR procedural compliance, costs budgeting, and trial bundle preparation, I am confident I can contribute to billing targets from day one.
My background in litigation includes managing a caseload of 30+ active disputes, drafting witness statements for multi-track trials, and appearing as advocate in both County Court and High Court hearings. I have instructed Counsel on complex matters and maintained costs budgets in line with Part 26 directions, consistently meeting fee-earning targets set by the firm.
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Interview questions
10 questions generated from this advert.
Technical
- ›Walk us through your process for preparing a trial bundle from initial instruction to court submission.
- ›How do you approach costs management and drafting a costs budget under CPR Part 26?
- ›Describe a complex commercial dispute you managed — what procedural steps did you take under the CPR?
- ›How do you handle a situation where Counsel's advice conflicts with your own assessment of the case?
- ›What experience do you have with advocacy in the High Court, and how do you prepare for a contested hearing?
Behavioural
- ›Tell me about a time you had to manage multiple high-value disputes simultaneously — how did you prioritise?
- ›Describe a situation where you had to lead a junior fee earner through a difficult procedural issue.
- ›Give an example of when you identified a risk in a case that others had overlooked and how you addressed it.
- ›Tell me about a time you fell short of a billing target and what you did to recover.
- ›Describe a situation where you had to deliver difficult news to a client about the prospects of their case.
STAR answer examples
Model answers using the Situation-Task-Action-Result framework. Adapt to your own experience.
Tell me about a time you had to manage multiple high-value disputes simultaneously — how did you prioritise?
Describe a situation where you had to deliver difficult news to a client about the prospects of their case.