Legal PA – Corporate

The role

This is a fantastic opportunity to join our Corporate department on a permanent basis, providing first class professional Legal PA support to a number of fee earners. 

The Legal PA will be an integral part of a busy department and will work principally for named fee-earners, but also as part of the EA/PA team with shared responsibilities. Team members will be expected to prioritise, share tasks and provide absence cover when appropriate to meet business needs. 

We are looking for an experienced Legal PA that can prioritise and delegate effectively, with good communication, organisational skills and the ability to work well and calmly under pressure in a fast paced role. 

Role responsibility

• Proactively manage and maintain fee earner diaries, making appointments and co-ordinating internal meetings and external client meetings including the booking of meeting rooms, video conference facilities, refreshments, restaurants, taxis etc, ensuring fee earners keep to schedule and that all necessary materials are to hand. 
• Making travel arrangements, producing detailed itineraries and ensuring expenses claimed are completed.
• Management of fee earners' inboxes when they are out of the office and monitoring and responding  to post/emails, prioritising correspondence to enable fee earners to focus on urgent matters and using initiative to route emails to the appropriate individuals for swift response and action; wherever possible, responding to and filing emails into iManage.
• Communicate with clients to support our client relationships and be able to deal with client queries. 
• Respond and deal with external or internal telephone calls and queries in a professional manner, taking clear and concise detailed messages.
• Attend meetings to take minutes, including recording relevant action points and working with fee earners to action these. 
• Assist with client on-boarding including drafting engagement letters, obtaining KYC and monies on account.
• Manage the workflow to our Document Production Centre ensuring dictations and documents are submitted and returned in a timely manner.
• Document amendments, comparisons and proof reading all work to ensure consistent accuracy and high standard.
• Typing and drafting where appropriate.
• Take responsibility for and leads on departmental and firm initiatives, including on BD and other internal initiatives, as requested by fee earners. 
• Preparation of account forms e.g. Chaps payments, credit notes.
• Coordinate the end-to-end billing process and Elite 3E financial reporting; assisting fee earners by liaising with the billing team, producing the relevant documentation and reports, and prompting fee earners to complete all necessary paperwork etc.  Assisting with debt management.
• Managing the team's client payments to ensure these are charged to the client. 
• Working with the BD team and fee earners to assist with pitch preparation, management of BD mailings, and coordinating responses and BD events. 
• Small volume photocopying and scanning, file opening and closure, collating and indexing legal documentation.
• Ensuring any paper/electronic filing and archiving required are kept up to date.
• Delegating appropriate tasks to the firm Team Assistants.
• Support to other EAs and PAs where required, especially during any absence.

About you

• Experience in a deadline-driven, high performing legal team.
• Flexible with time – willing to work beyond contractual hours when required.
• Good knowledge of Microsoft packages such as Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Excellent diary management, organisational and time management skills.
• Effective and professional telephone manner.
• Excellent attention to detail.
• Client service orientated approach.
• Leads by example and is seen as a role model.
• Displays discretion when dealing with sensitive information.
• Proactive, flexible and self-motivated. 
• A strong team player.
• Experience with BigHand, Elite 3E, iManage and Docusign would be advantageous. 

Additional information, systems used 

• iManage
• Microsoft Outlook
• Microsoft Word 
• Microsoft Powerpoint 
• Microsoft Excel 
• BigHand
• Elite 3E
• ChromeRiver
• CompareDocs / PDF Docs
• Docusign
• LexisNexis
• TitanFile

Hours of work

• Core Hours: Monday to Friday 9:30 - 17:30

Please note that we are not accepting applications via agencies for this role at this time. Before sharing any named candidate CVs, please contact your recruitment representative. If any named CVs are sent from agencies without approval from our recruitment team, they will not be deemed valid introductions, and no agency fee will be paid.

Benefits

• Competitive salary
• 25 days annual holiday
• Permanent Health Insurance
• Life Assurance
• Interest free Season Ticket Loan
• Private Healthcare
• Pension Scheme
• Staff Introductory Scheme
• Employee Assistance Programme

About us

With almost 200 lawyers in one location, we ensure our clients have the right team to help them get from where they are to where they want to be. We advise major corporates and institutions as well as entrepreneurial, ambitious enterprises which are often privately or family owned, or private equity backed. As well as our significant business law capability, we are one of only a few London-based law firms with a large private wealth offering. Our clients find our straightforward approach a compelling alternative to larger, less personal firms.

Whether you are an ambitious and talented individual wanting to hit the ground running from day one, or an established professional looking for a new opportunity, Howard Kennedy is the firm where you can really make it happen.

We have earned a strong reputation for our exceptional and uniquely talented people who between them deliver outstanding results for clients. In a firm of our size, our strong team dynamic creates a thriving culture of creativity and entrepreneurialism. Howard Kennedy is a pragmatic and non-hierarchical environment where success is shared, and you are proactively encouraged to thrive at your own pace.

Our distinctive culture is built on fairness and respect. Guided by the firm’s values of talk straight, think smart and be yourself, everyone in the firm holds equal value, and everyone plays their role in supporting, encouraging and inspiring colleagues to do their best work.

At the same time, we recognise and reward individualism, celebrating the diversity of our people and supporting them to grow their practice and drive their own career advancement.

As well as client work, there is opportunity to broaden your horizons at the firm with fulfilling pro bono and charity projects. We have a regular social calendar full of wellbeing activities, charitable and social events too.