Law

Court legal adviser

Court legal advisers are lawyers who advise magistrates and judges about the law in criminal, civil and family courts.

Annual Salary

£32,000 to £53,000

Working hours

37 to 40 a week

You could work: 9am to 5pm;

4.8%
Future employment

There will be 4.8% more Court legal adviser jobs in 2029.
In your local area

What's it all about?

Day-to-day tasks

As a court legal adviser, you could:

  • organise court hearings
  • make sure evidence is ready for the start of court proceedings
  • give advice to magistrates and judges on points of law
  • make sure people in court understand what's happening
  • research legal issues
  • help magistrates to daft the reasons behind judgements
  • conduct case management hearings
  • train admin staff and magistrates

Working environment

You could work in a court or in an office.

You can get into this job through:

  • working towards this role
  • applying directly
Work

You can apply to start as a trainee legal adviser. To do this, you need to have passed the academic stages of solicitor training or barrister training.

As a trainee, you'll complete a legal adviser training programme that takes around 2 years.

You can find out how to become a trainee legal adviser from HM Courts and Tribunals Service.

Direct application

You can apply directly for jobs if you're a fully qualified solicitor.

You'll be expected to have good customer service, communication and administration skills.

Requirements and restrictions

You'll need to:

More information

Career tips

It will be useful when applying for training, if you've spent some time in a magistrates' court. For example, this might be from observing the judicial process and the part played by the court's legal adviser.

Showing jobs in:
View all vacancies in this region

After qualifying, you'll work as a Tier 1 legal adviser. With more experience, you can move on to be a Tier 2 adviser, working on more complex cases and with more responsibility. For instance, reviewing casework and mentoring trainees.

As your career develops and with further training, you can move up in stages to become:a legal adviser team manager in a court; an area or regional manager; a justices' clerk, if you have over 5 years' experience; a barrister, crown prosecutor or judge

Skills required and how your skills match up

What skills are required?

  • legal knowledge including court procedures and government regulations
  • to be thorough and pay attention to detail
  • persistence and determination
  • analytical thinking skills
  • excellent verbal communication skills
  • the ability to think clearly using logic and reasoning
  • concentration skills
  • the ability to learn through your work
  • to be able to use a computer and the main software packages confidently
My top 5 skills from the skills bank
Please sign in to compare your skills to this job. Sign in

To save or view your choices and results you must sign in or register (takes 1 minute).

Sign in Register