Coram Children’s Legal Centre – Homelessness and Housing Law Advisor or Solicitor (London)

Job Title: Homelessness and Housing Law Advisor or Solicitor
Location: London
Salary Range: £21,600 – £23,400 (£36,000 – £39,000 FTE)
Contract: 3 years Fixed Term
Hours: 21 hours per week

About Coram

Coram is the UK’s oldest children’s charity founded by Thomas Coram in London helping vulnerable children and young people since 1739. Today, the Coram group helps more than one million children, young people, families and professionals every year by providing access to the skills and opportunities they need to thrive.

One of the nine members of the Coram group, Coram Children’s Legal Centre (CCLC) is the UK’s specialist centre for children’s rights in education, immigration, community care and family law, and provides significant international legal systems consultancy. The centre is located on the Coram Campus in central London with a base in Colchester. We champion access to justice through information and advice, legal practice and representation, policy and strategic litigation. Our Legal Practice Unit provides advice and representation primarily under legal aid contract. Our Policy and Practice Change team promotes practice change through training and capacity building to professionals and secures systems change through research, policy and advocacy.

About the role

This is an exciting opportunity to be part of a multidisciplinary team working to tackle youth homelessness.

This role is funded by the Oak Foundation and forms part of Coram’s Voices in Action programme which combines CCLC’s legal work, Coram Voice’s advocacy support and Coram’s policy and participation work to champion young people’s rights and create change.It centres and amplifies the voices of young people through our young ambassadors with personal experience of homelessness or school exclusion. The young ambassadors campaign locally and nationally to change policy and practice and empower their peers with knowledge of their rights through workshop delivery and content creation.

Working with others across the group, the purpose of this specific role is to provide specialist housing law advice, preliminary casework and onward referrals to young people under the age of 25 experiencing housing related issues. This will include delivering regular outreach advice sessions in partnership with community organisations. The post holder will work with the Head of Community Care Law on project design, co-ordination, delivery and reporting. Supported by the Head of Community Care Law, they will be proactive in developing community partnerships and managing relationships with partner organisations.

The role will be integrated within the wider community care and public law team and will be supported by the Head of Community Care Law. Building on the existing expertise and practice within the team, there will be a particular focus on advising and supporting young people who are care experienced, should have benefited from care or are young migrants. The aim is to diagnose complex legal issues relating to housing and homelessness, to ensure young people understand their position and legal rights and are either supported to take steps to realise those rights, provided with preliminary casework to resolve issue at early stage, or where needed, referred on for complex casework and litigation either internally or externally.

The role would suit an experienced housing law advisor or caseworker. We welcome applications from solicitors and non-solicitors. The priority is experience delivering high quality housing law advice and casework sensitively to vulnerable clients with a track record of delivering against project targets and meticulous case management skills. We are looking for a committed, resourceful and determined housing law advisor with a positive and solutions focused attitude who is able to work both independently and collaboratively as part of a team. They will be well supported with access to training, supportive line management and will benefit from being part of a wider collaborative legal practice team. They will work closely with a paralegal and be responsible for helping to develop the paralegal’s knowledge and understanding of housing related law.

The role will be based in our offices and with regular advice delivery in outreach locations. However, some remote/ hybrid working may be possible depending on the experience of the candidate after the initial settling in period. There may be flexibility over how the three days will be spread across the week (within working hours) and in accordance with the needs of the project.

Person Specification

Qualifications:

Be a qualified solicitor with no conditions [D]

Knowledge, Skills & Experience:

To have a thorough knowledge of housing law. [E]
To have substantial experience of providing housing advice or casework [E]
To have a good understanding of interrelated community care law, public law and
law and processes around housing related litigation. [D]
To have a good understanding of legal aid including the scope of different
categories of legal aid, means and merits eligibility criteria and to have experience
of completing legal aid forms and making applications. [D]
To have experience of delivering advice in outreach settings. [D]
Have experience of developing projects and partnerships. [D]
Be flexible and able to work hard and juggle several competing tasks at the same
time whilst working to deadlines. [E]
Be able to work with child and adult clients of a wide variety of cultural, ethnic and
educational backgrounds. [E]
Be able to interact with clients in a sensitive, professional and compassionate way.
[E]
Have excellent IT skills with the ability to work with a case management system and
standard office IT packages. [E]
Have excellent written and verbal communication skills including ability to explain
complex legal issues to a variety of audiences. [E]
Be able to work in an organised and methodical manner with a positive attitude. [E]
Be able to manage a busy workload and to run it efficiently with meticulous attention
to detail and careful case management. [E]
Be able to plan work and ensure targets are met. [E]
Willingness to actively contribute and participate in team meetings, the wider work
of the Centre and marketing and business development initiatives. [E]
Direct personal lived experience of the issues that CCLC works on, including the
UK immigration and asylum system, the care system, homelessness, the family
justice system and children’s educational law rights. [D]
Experience of working in a solicitors’ office, operating under quality standards and
regulatory requirements. [D]
Experience of working with children and young people with mental health
difficulties, those who have suffered trauma and who are facing challenging
circumstances or infringements to their rights. [D]
Experience of working with interpreters. [D]

Behaviours and Values:

A commitment to children’s human rights and support for CCLC’s aims. [E]
Be committed to high quality legal casework, advice-giving and client care. [E]
A positive approach to building excellent relationships. [E]
A positive attitude and willingness to assist other fee-earners in their work by
undertaking steps on their cases. [E]

Apply

For further information on CCLC please visit www.childrenslegalcentre.com.

To apply for this role, please click on the ‘apply now’ button below to complete the application, please note we do not accept CV’s.

Closing date: Monday 9th March 2026 17.00 pm

Test and Interview date: Week commencing Monday 16th March 2026