GLS Departments

Home > About the GLS >

What do we do?

As a career prospect, the Government Legal Service (GLS) is hard to beat. We offer good working conditions, a fantastic range of career opportunities and the chance to help shape the law which affects people’s lives.

The GLS joins together around 1900 Government lawyers including, at any one time, around 50 trainee solicitors and pupil barristers. GLS lawyers work in some 30 Government organisations, from Departments of State like the Home Office to public bodies such as the Office of Fair Trading. Those organisationally separate areas of Government legal provision - the Crown Prosecution Service, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel – maintain close links with the GLS. So do the legal teams supporting the Scottish Executive and the Northern Ireland Departments.

GLS legal teams can range in size from one lawyer in smaller regulatory bodies to more than 350 in larger organisations like the Treasury Solicitors’ Department. You’ll have opportunities to move from one team to another, broadening your experience in a way rarely possible in the private sector.

GLS legal teams welcome lawyers of all kinds – solicitors and barristers, newly qualified or experienced; litigators or advisers; drafters or commercial specialists. We value every one of our lawyers for the skills and professionalism they bring to the job.

Whatever you do within Government, we’ll support you every step of the way. We’ll keep you in touch with other lawyers across Government and update you on relevant legal developments. We’ll give you automatic access to a wealth of legal material and research, the GLS Journal and an online GLS job opportunities application system through a well-maintained lawyers’ intranet, LION (Legal Information Online Network). We also provide an outstanding professional training and development programme, backed up by careers advice.