Legal PA - Corporate
- Recruiter
- Career Legal, Legal PA & Secretarial
- Location
- London
- Salary
- £35,000
- Posted
- 05 Jul 2017
- Closes
- 02 Aug 2017
- Job Title
- Legal PA
- Practice Area
- Corporate
- Contract Type
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full Time
Specific responsibilities include:
Technical ability
- To proactively work with the fee earners to ensure relevant documentation is produced to meet clients’ expectations and deadlines
- To produce and amend documents with speed and accuracy, this includes legal documents along with some marketing documents (i.e. Bids/Briefings)
- To format, paginate, number and present documents in Norton Rose Fulbright LLP house style
- To proof read all work, checking for spelling and grammar
- To be a user of key software packages, (i.e. Word/PowerPoint/Excel) and take responsibility for any training (e.g. MOS) to improve relevant skills needed to meet the needs of the business
- To embrace and promote the use of technology and new approaches
- Takes responsibility for ensuring technical skills meet the requirements of the team
- To demonstrate excellent written communication skills, sufficiently developed to draft non-routine correspondence and emails, as instructed by fee earners
Administrative skills
- To provide proactive administrative and organisational support to the practice area ensuring and promoting quality, excellence and efficiency of service
- To prioritise and ensure smooth handover of document work to and from the Document Production Centre, liaising with Document Production Technicians and Fee Earners as appropriate in relation to progress of work and anticipated deadlines
- Manages diaries of allocated fee earners in Microsoft Outlook to include:
- Making and rearranging appointments ensuring efficient scheduling of meetings
- Proactively managing potential clashes
- Arranging meetings/conferences
- Sending and responding to invites on behalf of fee earner
- Booking restaurants and arranging associated travel
- To prepare papers for meetings, proactively seeking out and dealing with any necessary paperwork etc.
- Makes fee earner travel arrangements and observes budgets are in line with the Norton Rose Fulbright Travel Policy, to include:
- Preparing ‘door-to-door’ travel pack (full itinerary, tickets, relevant maps and/or directions, contact numbers)
- Booking hotels
- Booking flights
- Booking client and/or interoffice meetings
- Arranging cash, currency, visa, passport etc.
- Processes expense claims, payment requisition forms, returned advances, allocating to appropriate budgets
- To proactively seek client information/business cards and updates in order to maintain and update client and other relevant contact details on CMS/InterAction database
- To co-ordinate and liaise with Business Development in relation to fee earner CVs, business development materials, information packs
- To provide support in relation to business development events relating to the corporate team and be responsible for assisting with follow-ups
- To organise team events, including external an internal major client events, presentations and video conference calls
- To undertake internet research for fee earners as requested
- To process all forms - including new client form, new matter form, money laundering form etc
- To ensure that all electronic filing and paper-based filing is up to date and maintained at regular intervals in line with Norton Rose Fulbright Best Practice
- To assist with the preparation of narratives and bills
- To carry out photocopying and scanning as required
- To provide full support to the Secretarial Services Manager and the Secretarial Co-ordinators in the full range of activities that are performed and carry out any other duties as reasonably requested
Professional skills
- Develops an understanding of the team’s clients, current workflow and critical deadlines in order to be able to respond to internal and external queries professionally, appropriately direct telephone calls and manage the urgency/turnaround of documents being passed on to the DPC
- Understands and uses basic legal/corporate terminology, know how the department operates and who and what the Key Clients and Headlights are
- Immediately clarifies instructions from fee earners should they be unclear or if deadlines are not made explicit
- Supports other members of the secretarial team and provide cover as and when necessary to ensure that work is completed to a high standard and meets the required deadlines
- Ensures that there is sufficient telephone cover through the day to ensure that at least 90% of redirected calls are personally answered
- Is the expert and ‘go to’ contact in terms of where to source knowledge and information throughout the practice - InterAction; travel; meeting rooms, videoconferencing, business development information, intranet etc.
- Acts as a mentor and role model to trainees and junior secretarial staff, sharing knowledge, skills and experience in the provision of excellent service
- Provides full support to fee earners, including those in the wider team, in the full range of activities that are performed and carry out any other duties as reasonably requested
- Demonstrates a client-oriented focus with the ability to professionally communicate and deal with people at all levels, both internally and externally
General approach
- Establishes rapport with and trust of staff, managers and internal and external clients
- Shows a positive approach and interest in the work of fee earners and the wider team
- Takes ownership of queries: resolves, escalates or identifies alternative contacts as appropriate and uses initiative to actively seek solutions to problems
- Proactively seeks to identify and acts on opportunities to improve processes or ways of working
- Supports fee earners when clients are demanding the work product to be delivered
- Supports and builds collaborative working relationships with own fee earners as well as other members of the team and actively works for the interests of the whole team
- Exercises confidentiality, discretion and personal sensitivity in all aspects of role
- Demonstrates tact and diplomacy in relation to confidential client and/or team matters
Skills and Experience Required
- Established experience of working in a fast paced professional services organisation
- Excellent organisational and administrative skills
- Demonstrative interest in the work of the team and the Corporate department
- Strong time management and prioritisation skills as will be required to support a demanding group of Fee Earners at different levels of seniority
- Ability to use initiative/problem solve
- Flexible approach as may be required in order to assist the wider team and/or to meet document or client deadlines
- Is an effective user of key software packages, (i.e. Word/PowerPoint/Excel) and takes responsibility for any training (e.g. MOS) to improve relevant skills needed to meet the needs of the business
- Team player; Proactive
- Excellent client care skills