Legal Secretary

Owen Reed is looking to recruit a top Legal Secretary to support Private Client and Tax team for a top law firm in London.

The Legal PA’s principal role is to provide fee earners with the support they need to perform the task of providing legal services to clients and help them maximise the amount of time they are able to spend on fee-earning and other essential non fee-earning tasks (which cannot be delegated to the PA/Support), by assisting in the management and execution of their day to day workload and working in conjunction with the Legal DP Secretaries and business support departments. This role reports into the PC&T & Family PA Team Leader.

Responsibilities of Legal Secretary

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, faxes etc;
• Opening and closing of general files, general filing, record keeping and archiving of files;
• Using effective systems to ensure that both short and long term tasks are completed within required timescales.

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 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, faxes 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.

Financial

• Assisting fee earners in ensuring their time is recorded properly and entered onto the system on a daily basis;
• 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.

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 their department and, where practical, other departments.

Team duties will therefore include:

• Assisting others in the department 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;
• Participating in a lunch time telephone rota within the Legal PA team;
• 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 of Legal Secretary

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, organisational and team skills;
• Excellent attention to detail;
• Flexible and dependable, able to take the initiative;
• Able to remain calm under pressure and work to tight deadlines;
• Conscientious, approachable and enthusiastic;
• Able to quickly build confidence, respect and trust with others.