Owen Reed is looking to recruit an Proactive Legal Secretary to join a top law firm in London.
Standard hours for this role are 9:30am - 5:30pm, and will require attendance in the office 4 days each week.
Forming an integral part of an established team of secretaries, the main purpose of this role is to provide an excellent standard of admin and secretarial support to a team of fee earners across the practice area in our London office.
We are a Disability Confident employer and guarantee to interview anyone with a disability, long term health condition or neurodiversity whose application meets the essential criteria for the role as set out in this advert. If this applies to you contact
We are happy to talk flexible working and have in place a Flex-forward working scheme. We would encourage you to talk to us about our approach to flexible working during the hiring process if you would like to explore this further.
Role Responsibility
Secretarial
Able to work independently, pro-actively and with accuracy, key responsibilities include:
- Effective prioritisation and ownership of tasks whilst managing a full workload
- Proactively assisting with billing, cash collection and accounts queries and liaising with internal support teams to resolve issues quickly and effectively, including dealing with expenses claims
- Confidently managing large documents, creating versions, amending, proof reading and creating comparisons to highlight changes to include digital dictation
- Drafting email correspondence to both clients and suppliers
- Booking client and internal meetings, video and audio conferences, to include proactive diary management and co-ordination
- Creating and editing spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations, making the most of available technology and showing appropriate creativity to maximise professional impact of documentation
- Opening and closing files, including researching AML requirements and drafting emails to potential clients on what to provide
- Filing, archiving, photocopying and scanning documents as and when required
- Ensuring that client contact information is kept up to date on relevant systems
- Assisting with booking travel and accommodation arrangements in line with DACB way.
- Proactively assisting with ad-hoc business development and communications activities e.g. client contact reports, delegate packs etc.
- Building and maintaining a level of individual knowledge required for the role
- Helping maintain a clean office and clear desk
- At all times handling confidential information in line with the firm’s data security protocols
- To assist with some paralegal activities such as creating bundles, both hard and soft copy, uploading and downloading files to the network / filesite.
Administrative
- File management – updating and maintaining all files, ensuring documents are filed correctly and named in line with the business wide naming convention and the correct folder structures are adopted (both electronic and paper)
- Undertake all file closing/archiving procedures ensuring compliant at all times
- Make room and taxi bookings as requested, organising hand deliveries and courier requests, and other ad hoc requests
- Printing/copying/scanning of documents flowing to Office Services for support with high volume jobs, as appropriate
- Sending large electronic documents via One Drive
- Dealing with incoming post - scanning, saving to the file and circulating to the relevant fee earners
- Updating of Workflow Tracking Schedules – not sure what this means??
- Assisting with hard copy filing of legal documentation and original documents with wet signatures. Typing of standard letters i.e. payment of invoices, acceptance of events
- Uploading documents to PDF docs and editing documents using the same
- Other ad hoc tasks at the request of the secretarial team
The Ideal Candidate
- Qualified to a minimum of 5 GCSEs (including a grade C (5) in English and Maths) or equivalent
- A secretarial NVQ / Diploma or equivalent would be beneficial but is not essential
- Must have good IT skills, particularly in Microsoft packages (including each of Outlook, Word, Powerpoint, Excel) and prior experience of working with a case management system is preferable.
- Sound knowledge of pdf docs and file sharing platforms (High Q / sharefile)
- Good working knowledge of 3E accounts software
- An excellent eye for detail with a concern for quality and accuracy
- A focused client service approach is essential
- Team oriented and collaborative with a flexible, can do attitude
- Ability to communicate clearly and concisely orally and in writing