Legal PA - Dispute Resolution, Business Crime

The role

This is a fantastic opportunity to join our friendly and supportive Dispute Resolution team, providing first-class professional PA support to a number of fee-earners. We are looking for an experienced PA to provide a high level support to approximately four-to-five  fee earners. 

The Legal PA will be an integral part of our busy Business Crime and Regulatory team (which sits under the wider Dispute Resolution department) and will work principally for named fee-earners, but also as part of our PA team with shared responsibilities. We're looking for an experienced Legal PA who can prioritise and delegate effectively, with excellent communication and organisation skills. The team is extremely busy with a full roster of interesting and varied work.

The team:

This role sits within the Business Crime and Regulatory team, which is part of our Dispute Resolution Department. The team are incredibly collaborative and social; as well as principally assisting your fee-earners, we always seek to support one another and pull together to provide seamless and complete support to our fee-earner population, whose work includes many interesting, ground-breaking and confidential cases.  As a relatively small team (we have 11 fee earners, two PAs and a TA) where every member is truly valued and each skillset is recognised.

Our Business Crime and Regulatory team serves a wide range of entrepreneurial clients, from individuals through to larger, cross-jurisdictional organisations. The team's experience covers all forms of business crime and regulatory including general crime, white collar crime, internal investigations, private prosecutions, extradition, financial crime (both corporate and individuals), regulatory investigations (SRA, SFO, FCA etc). We work across a wide range of sectors and deploy a bespoke strategy based on our clients' specific objectives and budgets. 

Role responsibility

• Proactively manage and maintain fee-earner diaries, making appointments and co-ordinating internal and external client meetings including the booking of meeting rooms, video conference facilities, refreshments, restaurants, taxis etc.
• Making travel arrangements (domestic and foreign), producing itineraries and ensuring expenses claims are completed.
• Management of fee-earners' inboxes when they are out of the office; monitoring and responding to 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 in to iManage.
• Acting as the key contact point for internal and external queries posed to the fee-earners who you support.
• Being proactive by ensuring that the fee-earners have any paperwork, equipment and supplies required for any meetings, travel etc.
• Producing documentation as required – undertaking audio typing, copy typing, drafting and amending documents, letters and correspondence where appropriate and proofreading all work to ensure consistent accuracy and high standard.
• Preparation of account forms.
• Coordination of 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.
• Bundling – both electronic and hardcopy (collating; copying; compiling; preparing an index; paginating).
• Undertaking research using the internet, databases etc.
• Liaising with clients, Counsel and other external parties.
• Supporting other PAs where required, especially during any absence.
• Using initiative to take responsibility of administration that will assist the fee earners.
• Ensuring all correspondence/documentation is correctly electronically filed on iManage.

About you

Ideally you will be able to demonstrate;

• Appreciation for the need to maintain confidentiality due to the nature of the work we undertake and the, sometimes, high profile nature of the clients.  You should always display discretion when dealing with sensitive and confidential information.
• Experience in a demanding, high performing professional services environment (preferably in Dispute Resolution but not essential)
• Extremely well organised with excellent diary management and time management skills.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• A high level of attention to detail.
• A proactive, flexible and self-motivated approach.
• A strong team player.
• Knowledge of Microsoft packages such as Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
• Experience with BigHand, Elite 3E, iManage/FileSite would be advantageous.

Additional Information / Systems Used 

• Outlook 365
• Word 365
• Powerpoint 365
• Excel 365
• iManage
• BigHand Digital Dictation System
• Microsoft Teams
• 3E

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

We are a London based, full-service law firm, specialising in providing straightforward advice to entrepreneurial businesses and individuals on domestic and international matters.

We have grown substantially in recent years, including two mergers and an office move. We’ve also matured in terms of our approach to providing advice to our clients, seeking to simplify and improve the experience of working with a modern, independent law firm.

We’re proud of our journey. Without losing sight of where we’ve come from, we are focused on where we’re going. We are evolving and growing every day. And just like our clients, we are ambitious and moving forward. Many of our clients are entrepreneurial, ambitious enterprises who are often privately or family owned, or private equity backed. We are one of the only London based law firms with a large private wealth offering alongside significant business law capability.

The firm also advises major corporates on particular specialist legal matters who find our straightforward approach a compelling alternative to larger, less personal firms.