Lawyer

We are looking for lawyers to join our legal team. We welcome applications from solicitors, barristers and chartered legal executives.

The Howard League’s lawyers are responsible for advising and representing children and young people in custody; running cases funded by legal aid; scoping and developing strategic litigation; and contributing to the Howard League’s policy and campaigning work

We also challenge human rights violations and executive overreach across the prison estate. We are developing an impactful strategic litigation portfolio to effect vital change for adult men and women, as well as children, in prison.

Recent work includes bringing legal action in relation to the introduction of PAVA spray into children’s prisons, addressing unlawful segregation practices at Oakhill secure training centre and tackling unsafe conditions across the prison estate.

We are a membership organisation that combines our litigation with campaigning and policy work. Together with our campaigns team, our legal team drives forward the organisation’s strategic priority areas (IPP sentences, joint enterprise, remand, and sentence inflation) and provides cross-organisational support on wider policy and communications work. To take IPPs as an example, last year we set up a hotline with law firm Peters & Peters to help people serving IPP sentences with complex changes in the law relating to their licences, and this year we convened an expert working group to provide practical policy solutions for ending the long-running IPP scandal for good.

There is no shortage of interesting and important work for creative and strategic lawyers in this space. We are looking for lawyers to join our legal team who can:

• scope and develop strategic public law and human rights challenges;
• provide high quality legal advice and advocacy support to children and young people in prison, and their families, friends and professionals working with them;
• run a small caseload of legally aided prison and/or public law cases; and
• work collaboratively with colleagues to contribute to the charity’s priority areas and wider policy and campaigning work as required.

We welcome applications from solicitors, barristers and chartered legal executives.

The Howard League recognises the importance of building an inclusive, diverse workforce. We welcome applications from marginalised groups and from candidates with personal experience of the criminal justice system.

Although experience of representing people in prison is desirable, this is not essential. We also want to hear from lawyers who have experience of conducting public law and/or human rights litigation and are excited about helping to develop strategic litigation to effect meaningful change in this area.