The Government Legal Profession (GLP), formerly the Government Legal Service,
Government Legal Service is now called Government Legal Profession
accessed 5 August 2021 is an umbrella group comprising around two thousand qualified lawyers
A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters.
The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as wel ...
working as civil servant
The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...
s in around thirty UK Government
His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. departments.
The Treasury Solicitor
The Government Legal Department (previously called the Treasury Solicitor's Department) is the largest in-house legal organisation in the United Kingdom's Government Legal Profession.
The department is headed by the Treasury Solicitor (formall ...
(currently Susanna McGibbon
Susanna Justine McGibbon (born 11 November 1967) is a barrister and senior British civil servant who currently serves as HM Procurator General, Treasury Solicitor and Head of the Government Legal Service, and so Permanent Secretary of the Gov ...
) is also the Head of the Government Legal Profession. GLP lawyers are mostly employed by the Government Legal Department
The Government Legal Department (previously called the Treasury Solicitor's Department) is the largest in-house legal organisation in the United Kingdom's Government Legal Profession.
The department is headed by the Treasury Solicitor (formal ...
, although based in other government departments, with some being directly employed by the department in which they work. The GLP brand is used primarily for recruitment
Recruitment is #Process, the overall process of identifying, sourcing, screening, shortlisting, and interviewing candidates for Job (role), jobs (either permanent or temporary) within an organization. Recruitment also is the process involved in ...
purposes and offers training and support to GLP lawyers. The GLP Secretariat supports the work of lawyers across the GLP by providing central library services and for an intranet
An intranet is a computer network for sharing information, easier communication, collaboration tools, operational systems, and other computing services within an organization, usually to the exclusion of access by outsiders. The term is used in ...
system, Legal Information Online Network, or LION, which can be accessed by all government lawyers, and gives access to commercial legal databases and information and articles relevant to government legal work.
Lawyers in the Government Legal Profession:
* instruct Parliamentary Counsel
Parliamentary counsel are lawyers who prepare drafts of legislation to be passed into law. The terms parliamentary drafter, parliamentary draftsman, legislative drafting officer and legislative counsel are also widely used.
These terms are used ...
to draft almost all United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
primary legislation
Primary legislation and secondary legislation (the latter also called delegated legislation or subordinate legislation) are two forms of law, created respectively by the legislative and executive branches of governments in representative democ ...
;
* draft the vast majority of statutory instruments and secondary legislation
Secondary may refer to: Science and nature
* Secondary emission, of particles
** Secondary electrons, electrons generated as ionization products
* The secondary winding, or the electrical or electronic circuit connected to the secondary winding ...
in the UK;
* advise departments of the United Kingdom Government
The Government of the United Kingdom is divided into departments that each have responsibility, according to the government, for putting government policy into practice. There are currently 24 ministerial departments, 20 non-ministerial departm ...
on the formulation and implementation of policy;
* provide litigation services to departments of the United Kingdom Government and the wider public sector;
* prior to Brexit
Brexit (, a portmanteau of "Britain" and "Exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU).
Brexit officially took place at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February ...
, ensured European Union law
European Union law is a system of Supranational union, supranational Law, laws operating within the 27 member states of the European Union (EU). It has grown over time since the 1952 founding of the European Coal and Steel Community, to promote ...
was correctly implemented into UK law.
There are separate but similar structures in the devolved
Devolution is the statutory delegation of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to govern at a subnational level, such as a regional or local level. It is a form of administrative decentralization. Devolved territories ...
administrations, the Government Legal Service for Scotland and the Government Legal Service for Northern Ireland
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a mea ...
.
References
External links
Government Legal Profession
official website
Solicitors
Law of the United Kingdom
Public bodies and task forces of the United Kingdom government
{{UK-gov-stub