Government Legal Service | GLS | Law Careers

This means that the GLS has a diverse range of departments such as the Home Office, Dept for Work and Pensions, Department of Health, HM Revenue and Customs, Defra, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Justice and the Office of Fair Trading under its corporate umbrella. Think about the work of those departments and you’ll  realise that the work of a GLS lawyer is always varied and often high profile and politically sensitive.

You can think of the GLS as being a legal version of the retail organisations Arcadia. Whilst Arcadia counts a range of diverse brands such as as Burton, Topman, Miss Selfridge and Topshop under its corporate umbrella, the GLS has any equally diverse portfolio of departments such as the Home Office, Dept for Work and Pensions, Department of Health, Revenue and Customs, Defra, the Ministry of Defence and the Office of Fair Trading. But, like the component parts of the Arcadia and GM organisations, each GLS legal team has a distinct identity.

You may not have considered that Government departments need lawyers but think about a large department such as the Department for Work and Pensions. It is one of the largest employers in the country.

It owns a huge amount of properties and buys vast quantities of goods and services. It also is responsible for devising and implementing policy relating to the welfare and benefit system.

You may not have considered that Government departments need lawyers but think about a large department such as the Department for Work and Pensions. It is one of the largest employers in the country.

It owns a huge amount of properties and buys vast quantities of goods and services. It also is responsible for devising and implementing policy relating to the welfare and benefit system.

But think about what that means. Employees may have a grievance against their employer which ends up in the courts. A contract awarded to the supplier of medical equipment which costs millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money must be awarded in a fair and legally binding manner.

Those that abuse the benefit and welfare system need to be prosecuted and members of the public who wish to challenge a decision made by the Government have the right to do so in the courts.

To manage all of this work, the Government needs its own lawyers who understand its business. And that is where the GLS comes in.

James Murphy

Government Legal Service Secretariat

www.gls.gov.uk/

20-09-2009