Owen Reed are seeking a Legal PA with a focus on Litigation to join our team in Holborn. This is a permanent, full-time position with standard office hours from Monday to Friday, 9:30 am to 5:30 pm. The role involves providing comprehensive support in a dynamic litigation environment, ideal for those committed to excellence in legal administrative duties.
To provide professional PA support to partners and fee earners. The successful candidate should be comfortable working for a variety of partners and fee earners and proactively providing back up support as and when required.
Key tasks
- Diary management and organising travel and accommodation (including assisting overseas clients with travel and accommodation arrangements)
- Assisting with monthly billing and expenses
- Assisting with time recording and tracking non-chargeable time on interviews, business development etc
- Management of fee earner contacts
- Document production and correspondence
- Digital Dictations
- Liaising with clients
- Filing – both hard copy and electronic
- Assisting fee earners in business development activities - taking the lead when putting together marketing material and pitch documents.
- Tracking BD events and diarising for follow up for key contacts at appropriate intervals.
- Liaising directly with contacts/potential clients to arrange BD events, lunches, etc.
Candidate profile and skills
- Recognises that the PA team shares responsibility for the work of the whole of company.
- Recognises the importance of working as part of a team and promotes team spirit. Willingly assists other team members and shares knowledge.
- Seeks work to do when not busy.
- Responds to queries in a helpful, courteous and professional manner.
- Adds value by ensuring that the client experiences the highest quality of service at all times.
- Clarifies deadlines with fee-earners and establishes the relative urgency of tasks.
- Anticipates the requirements of fee-earners in preparation for meetings, deadlines, etc and proactively looks for opportunities to add value.
- Technically competent in all relevant applications and templates.
- Proactively looks for opportunities to improve IT knowledge.
- Ability to draft short correspondence to a consistently high level with minimal errors eg internal emails and administrative issues.
- Fast and accurate production of all documents and correspondence. High level of attention to detail.
- Actively manages fee-earners' diaries. Exercises good judgment with regard to priorities and resolves conflicting appointments. Makes resource and travel arrangement e.g., hotels, visas, transfers, etc and provides an itinerary.
- Establishes and remembers the different preferences of fee-earners.
- A can do, will do attitude – does not just see role as a 9.30 to 5.30 job. Shows flexibility around lunch breaks and office hours as work demands e.g., on Court days.
- A proactive as opposed to reactive approach to the role.
Profile:
The ideal candidate will have minimum 4-5 years of experience in a similar position – preferably with a dispute resolution team. They will have excellent document production and organisational skills and attention to detail.
They will have strong communication skills and will be client oriented. A natural ability to be proactive and take initiatives will be appreciated, as well as a can-do attitude and a real capacity to take ownership for projects and tasks.
A good candidate will also be a team player, who can be flexible, take initiative and step in to help colleagues where required.