Senior Legal Adviser

Closing date: Fri, 6 Sept 2024

Team information

Legal Services is a highly regarded team from a mixture of Civil Service and private practice backgrounds. The team provides legal advice in respect of all ORR’s functions and on corporate matters such as IT and employment.

Role of the Legal Services team

Legal Services is a small, supportive team who are valued across the office for providing high quality, policy focused and risk-based advice. The team is involved in everything the office does – for example, over the last year our regulatory lawyers have been involved in:

• advising on the five-yearly periodic reviews of Network Rail and HS1. This included PR23 for Network Rail which concluded in March 2024 - our lawyers provided advice to policy colleagues and were heavily involved in implementation work; we are currently involved with PR24 for HS1, which will conclude in March 2025;
• advising on ORR’s work on rail reform, in the context of the Department for Transport’s White Paper ‘Great British Railways: Williams-Shapps plan for rail’ – this involved our lawyers working with policy colleagues, and directly with DfT and GBRTT on various policy matters, including legislative drafting discussions with Parliamentary Counsel; 
• setting the policy for monitoring Network Rail’s and Highways England’s performance and holding those bodies to account – our lawyers have formed part of the core ORR teams investigating both NR and NH this year;  
• ensuring accessibility of the rail network and the protection of passengers under consumer law;  
• determining contractual disputes about timetabling or access to the rail network;  
• Leading ORR’s successful defence to a judicial review challenge brought by a charter train operator (WCR running the Jacobite/Harry Potter line); 
• ensuring the Channel Tunnel operates safely and in accordance with the UK’s international obligations; and
• corporate matters, such as employment and procurement

In addition, other members of Legal Services have been involved in our competition law cases (such as ORR’s recent investigation into railway station catering) and policy, while our specialist prosecution lawyers have been prosecuting health and safety offences (including the significant Sandilands (Croydon Tram) prosecution) and advising on safety policy.

All of our lawyers work closely with our colleagues at all levels across ORR – from the CEO and the Board to junior staff – and with industry, other regulators and central and devolved governments. 

Job Purpose

The successful applicant will be responsible for advising across ORR’s regulatory functions. We do not expect applicants to have existing expertise in all areas of ORR’s work but you must be willing to advise on a wide range of matters in relation to both our economic and safety functions. This role offers the opportunity to enjoy a varied and stimulating case load, whilst participating in shaping the policies of our organisation.

As a Senior Legal Adviser at ORR you will support the management and resilience of the legal team by working constructively with other team members and contributing to the leadership of the team and the organisation.

Key Responsibilities

Your key responsibilities, although not exhaustive, will include:

• understand all ORR’s regulatory functions and have an in-depth understanding of ORR’s policy and strategic objectives and how significant issues could impact on these, particularly in your practice areas;
• provide timely and high quality legal advice to colleagues on a wide range of issues in your practice areas, both in respect of discrete requests for legal assistance and on larger matters; 
• manage, with minimal supervision, your own caseload and work collaboratively with others on larger matters;
• highlight to senior colleagues, drawing on a deep understanding of commercial and policy issues, any significant legal risks particularly in your practice areas on a timely basis and develop solutions to manage these;
• proactively liaise with legal teams/advisers of stakeholders and other government departments/regulators as appropriate;