Paralegal

Starting salary: £34,721 per year

Contract type: Fixed term contract for 2 years

Grade: 3

Location: Longmore House, Salisbury Place, Edinburgh, EH9 1SH

Working Hours: 35 hours per week

Interviews: To be held in person at Longmore House on week commencing 27 th July 2026

This role puts you at the heart of HES’s legal & insurance operations — supporting solicitors, managing case and critical information, improving processes, and playing a key part in how we safeguard Scotland’s heritage. If you love detail, pace, and problem‑solving, you’ll thrive here

Benefits of joining us at Historic Environment Scotland

• Enrolment onto a Civil Service Pension scheme – 28% employer contribution
• 25 days annual leave, pro-rata (increasing to 30 days after 3 years) + 11.5 public holidays
• Reimbursement for relevant professional subscriptions
• Support for further education and personal development
• Study leave for work related courses
• Flexible working hours (where appropriate)
• Free entry to all of our properties (with up to three guests)

• Free entry to English Heritage, Manx and Cadw properties

Key responsibilities of this role

• Handle legally privileged and highly confidential information with professionalism and discretion.

• Support the Head of Legal and solicitors by carrying out legal research, drafting, preparing and formatting documentation, and liaising with colleagues across HES.

• Support the management of insurance claims, including gathering evidence, coordinating witnesses, supporting timelines, and maintaining accurate records. Act as an initial point of contact for legal requests, maintaining communication with stakeholders and managing expectations on progress and timelines.

• Triage incoming requests for legal advice, ensuring essential information is captured and matters are accurately recorded.

• Manage the Legal Team shared inbox, triaging requests, identifying priorities and risks, and ensuring timely progression of actions. Maintain and update legal workflows, registers and information systems (including contract, IP and insurance records), ensuring accuracy and consistency of data.

• Support management of the team’s case and document systems (currently SharePoint).

• Maintain and update legal templates and, under appropriate legal supervision, draft and issue standard legal documents and templates.

• Support ongoing improvement of legal templates, processes and contract management systems.

• Support financial and administrative processes including raising purchase orders, processing invoices, tracking expenditure and managing expenses.

• Participate in projects within the Legal Team and wider organisation, undertaking research where required.

• Support team ‑ wide initiatives such as CPD tracking and professional fee administration.

Key requirements of the role

In order for you to be successful in this post, we will be looking for you to submit a cover letter which addresses how you can meet each of the essential and desirable criteria (in up to 1,200 words), using examples of where you have demonstrated these criteria previously. Please ensure that you provide real life examples for each of the criteria to be considered for this post. You can use examples of how you have met this criteria from your work life, home life, education or volunteer experience.

Essential

• Qualified to at least SCQF level 7 in legal services or a related subject

• Experience of working in a legal environment or relevant legal studies (e.g. in-house, private practice)

• Strong IT skills, including MS Office 365 (SharePoint, Teams, Word, Excel, Visio, Adobe Acrobat/Sign, Outlook)

• Demonstrable experience of drafting, formatting and maintaining complex legal documents and templates

• Sound understanding of basic legal concepts

• Strong organisational skills, including the ability to prioritise workload, manage legal workflows and meet tight deadlines in a fast-paced environment

• Excellent communication and analytical skills

• Strong problem-solving skills and attention to detail

• Ability to handle confidential and sensitive information with discretion

• Ability to build and maintain effective working relationships

We are dedicated to building a workforce which is reflective of diversity within Scotland. We warmly welcome applications from candidates of all backgrounds, regardless of age, race, gender or gender identity, religious beliefs, marital status, sexual orientation, disability, or neurodiversity. In support of our Gaelic Language Plan, we welcome applications from Gaelic speakers.

We want every candidate to have the best chance to succeed during the recruitment process. If you require your application in an alternative format, please reach out to us via email at ***email_hidden*** or call our Head Office at 0131 668 8600 and speak to a member of our People Team.

Please note that, at this time, we are unfortunately unable to provide sponsorship as part of the recruitment process, therefore you must have current right to work in the UK to be considered for a post.