AJ Chambers is working alongside an International Law Firm based in the City of London who are recruiting for a Legal PA in the Litigation department.
You will support a friendly cohort of 5 Fee Earners including 1 Partner.
Responsibilities
Administrative
- Managing diaries, ensuring they are up to date and reminding fee earners of meetings etc on a daily basis;
- Arranging meetings, booking conference rooms, refreshments, checking rooms prior to meetings etc and liaising with other attendees, both internal and external;
- Organising complex travel and accommodation arrangements, ensuring confirmation of reservations, dealing with related invoices and putting together accurate schedules for fee earners;
- Arranging for or, where not appropriate, conducting photocopying, printing, organising couriers, sending out of letters etc;
- Opening and closing of general files, general filing and record keeping.
- Using effective systems to ensure that both short and long term tasks are completed within required timescales.
Financial / Billing Process
- Assisting fee earners in the billing and credit control process by liaising with the fee earner and accounts and to produce standard financial/time reports through the system;
- Requesting cheques, bank transfers and paying in money received, as appropriate.
- Verbally confirming bank details over the phone.
Communication
- Taking internal and external telephone queries, responding as appropriate and/or ensuring that all messages are passed on in a timely manner;
- Monitoring post and/or e-mails and dealing with as appropriate and ensuring that all client related correspondence is passed on to an appropriate fee earner if the relevant person is out of the office;
- Liaising with business support departments on behalf of fee earners as required;
- Liaising with the department's Team Leader over any planned absences, arranging cover as necessary and communicating this to the relevant fee earners.
Client relationship management
- Be part of the client care team and be familiar with contacts/clients;
- Entering, maintaining and updating client details and relevant information on the Firm's CRM/contacts system;
- Deal with basic client queries and general administration, particularly in relation to key clients;
- Arrange client meetings.
Document production
- Checking correspondence, attachments, documents, reports, presentations etc produced by the Legal DP Secretarial team before they are passed to the relevant fee earner and undertaking basic/minor amendments where appropriate;
- Typing of urgent/short/confidential correspondence and emails;
- Producing and maintaining Excel spreadsheets as required.
Other duties and responsibilities
In addition to providing support to the fee earner(s) to whom they report, a Legal PA should also provide assistance to their immediate colleagues in the Litigation and Corporate department, and where practical, other departments.
Team duties will therefore include:
- Assisting others in the department (both Litigation and Corporate) whenever there is spare capacity or it is evident that a colleague needs assistance with their workload;
- Picking up telephone calls for other members of the department when they are away from their desk;
- Assisting other members of the department, both proactively and at the request of the Team Leader;
- Working effectively with other legal and support departments as required;
- Any other duties as reasonably requested by a person of an appropriate seniority.
Skills and experience
A Legal PA also has a responsibility to ensure that their skill set is up to date and they are familiar with the Firm's departments, key personnel, clients, internal systems and procedures. This will ensure that the Legal PA is able to carry out his or her role effectively and, where appropriate, discuss any training requirements with the Team Leader. In addition to this, they should have:
- Advanced knowledge of Microsoft Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, research tools and other systems implemented by the Firm;
- Excellent telephone manner and competent knowledge of telephone system;
- Excellent communication and organisational skills, flexible and dependable.