Legal Assistant - Bromley, United Kingdom - Thackray Williams LLP

Description

Summary of role

The Legal Assistant will act as a workflow manager for other support services including delegating and supervising the completion of document production, file management and copying/scanning work.

The Legal Assistant will take an active interest in and obtain a thorough understanding of all aspects of client requirements to provide exceptional service levels to both the Lawyers and clients.

In line with policies and procedures, key responsibilities include:

Administrative

• Manage diaries, ensuring they are up to date and reminding Lawyers of meetings etc. on a daily basis
• Arrange meetings, book conference rooms and liaise with other attendees, both internal and external
• Arrange photocopying, printing, organising couriers, sending out of letters, faxes etc.
• Arrange for files to be opened and closed, supervise general filing requirements and record keeping
• Use effective systems to ensure that both short and long term tasks are completed within required timescales
• Support Lawyers in marketing activities

Communication

• Take internal and external telephone queries, responding as appropriate and/or ensuring that all messages are passed on in a timely manner
• Liaise with other Business Support departments on behalf of lawyers as required

Client relationship management

• Become an active part in the care of clients and be wholly familiar with contacts/clients
• Enter, maintain and update client details and relevant information on the firm's contacts system
• Deal with basic client queries and general administration
• Arrange client meetings

Document production

• Check correspondence, attachments, documents, reports, presentations, faxes etc produced by the Document Production team before they are passed to the relevant lawyer and undertake basic/minor amendments where appropriate
• Produce and maintain Excel spreadsheets as required

Financial

• Assist Lawyers in ensuring their time is recorded properly and entered onto the system on a daily basis
• Assist Lawyers in the billing and credit control process by liaising with the Lawyer and accounts team, producing standard financial/time reports through the system
• Request cheques, bank transfers and paying in money received, as appropriate

Other duties and responsibilities

In addition to providing support to the fee-earners to whom they offer services, the Legal Assistant will also provide assistance to their immediate colleagues in the 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
• Assisting other members of the department
• Working effectively with other legal and support departments as required
• Any other duties as reasonably requested by the Lawyers or a person of an appropriate seniority.

Person Specification

The Legal Assistant has 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 Assistant is able to carry out his or her role effectively and, where appropriate, discuss any training requirements with the Department Head.

In addition to this, they should have:

• Legal Assistant/Paralegal/Legal Secretarial experience within Residential Conveyancing/ Newbuild.
• Accurate typing speed of at least 60 words per minute
• Advanced knowledge of Microsoft Word, Outlook, Excel, Powerpoint, research tools and other systems implemented by the firm
• Excellent communication, organisational and team skills
• Experience of building and maintaining internal and external client relationships
• Organised and able to prioritise workloads
• Accurate and with keen attention to detail
• Takes the initiative
• Able to remain calm under pressure and work to tight deadlines
• Have a positive approach to daily tasks and have a solution focussed working method

Personal attributes required in line with the firm's core competencies

The firm has a comprehensive set of core competencies that represent the behaviours we require from all staff within the firm.

Incorporated within this framework are our core values of;

• Honesty and integrity
• Open to change
• Pursuit of excellence
• Support of others

The core values are central to the ethics of our firm and must be displayed to the highest level at all times.

The individual core competencies for this role are aligned to those expected of a Legal Assistant in the core competency framework.

Hours
Normal working hours are 9am to 5.30pm.

Staff will be expected to be flexible and to arrive earlier and stay later when the job or business requires.

There may be an opportunity to work alternative hours upon request, dependant upon t