Legal Secretary / Administrator (Part time)

Job Description

Job title: Legal Secretary / Administrator (Part time)

Company: Birketts

Job description: Birketts is a full service, UK Top 50 law firm. With a heritage spanning 160 years, we have more than 600 lawyers and legal professionals based in Cambridge, Chelmsford, Ipswich, London, Norwich and Sevenoaks. We advise businesses, government and public sector organisations and individuals in the UK and internationally.

Our business is divided into four principal practice groups: property (including planning and environmental); corporate services (including banking and finance, corporate, commercial, data protection, employment, immigration, and tax); litigation and dispute resolution (including IP); and private client advisory (including family).

Within these practice groups, we have deep sector expertise, spanning agriculture and landed estates, charities and social enterprise, construction, ecclesiastical, education, energy and utilities, family businesses, food, healthcare and care homes, housebuilding and social housing, leisure and tourism, natural capital, public sector, real estate investment, retail and automotive, shipping and international trade, technology and telecoms and transport and logistics.

We seek to innovate in all our practices; our focus is on investing in the right technology to deliver effective solutions to help our clients achieve their objectives.

We enjoy a distinctively collegiate culture based on strong core values. Operating as one collaborative firm, we encourage all our people to be professional and client-focused; to act with transparency and integrity; to be enterprising, and to proactively look for innovative ways to support our clients; whilst taking pride in all that they do.

With our ambition to succeed, comes a strong desire to make a positive contribution to the communities we serve, and we are committed to delivering the objectives set out in our ESG strategy. Diversity plays an integral part in all that we do, with female partners comprising 40% of our partnership.

However it our culture that makes us stand out. We are truly collaborative, inclusive and caring and our motto is “Not just a firm a family”.

Our Kent office in Sevenoaks is our newest office and is primed for growth to realise the huge opportunities and need for excellent legal advice in the South East.
The department

Our Employment and Corporate teams boasts some of the best lawyers in the country. Their work is varied and includes individual client, companies, charities, education and health institutions and others.

There will shortly be two employment lawyers in Sevenoaks (out of a team of a firm wide team of 35, one of the largest employment teams outside of London), one of whom is the Head of the Employment and Immigration Team. There will also be a corporate partner requiring support and others on-boarding in fairly quick succession. Like the employment team the corporate team across the firm is also very significant. The two teams work closely together in what we refer to as our corporate services division. We have the strength and depth of expertise in both teams to ensure we deliver the service you would expect in respect of technical quality, practical approach and timeliness of advice. Both teams are busy and active in growing our client base and do lots of business development which needs administrative support as well as their legal work.
Purpose of job

The Employment and Corporate team in Sevenoaks is recruiting for an articulate and forward thinking Team Administrator/Legal Secretary to come and join us on a full time permanent basis to provide professional, pro-active, and high level administration support to a small group of busy ambitious fee earners.
Accountabilities

• Proactively working with fee earners to ensure relevant documentation is produced to meet clients’ expectations and deadlines;
• Format, paginate, number and present documents in Birketts LLP house style;
• Proof read all work;
• Manage diaries of allocated fee earners in Microsoft Outlook;
• General PA type duties including booking restaurants and accommodation;
• To prepare narratives and bills and keep billing files up to date;
• Process expense claims, payment requisition forms, returned advances;
• Accurately maintain and update client and other relevant contact details on our client database;
• Ensure that all electronic filing and paper based filing is up to date and maintained at regular intervals;
• Respond to internal and external telephone enquiries professionally;
• Proactively support other members of the secretarial team and to provide cover as and when necessary to ensure that work is completed to a high standard and meets the required deadlines.

The candidate

You will have the ability to contribute at an operational level working well in a team and with excellent communication skills and can demonstrate general skills in:

• Strong proactive administration experience;
• Positive, enthusiastic and professional approach;
• Strong attention to detail, high level organisational skills and reliable;
• Self-motivated with an ability to use own initiative with a desire to learn.
• Flexibility to learn and manage new things and work at pace when needed.
• Ability to create positive impressions and relationships with clients.
• Ability to liaise closely and seemlessly with colleagues in other offices and build good working relationships with others.

Equal opportunities

We are committed to recruiting individuals on merits of suitability for each role, on the basis of qualifications and experience. All applications are treated fairly and equally regardless of sexual orientation, race, disability, religious beliefs and any other protected characteristic, ensuring that there are equal opportunities at all stages of the recruitment process.

Benefits

One of the best things about joining Birketts is our rewards package. At Birketts we’re appreciative of the people who work for us and our rewards package is reviewed regularly to reflect that. You can expect to receive:

• 25 days holiday (FTE) plus Bank Holidays
• Long Service holiday award – 1 extra week every 10 years continuous service
• Private Healthcare – BUPA (offered after probation is passed)
• Scottish Widows Pension Scheme (5% employer / 5% Employee)
• Staff Profit Share / Salary sacrifice (Pensions, Staff Profit Share)
• Life Assurance – 4 x salary / Permanent Health Insurance
• Paid ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) day
• Enhanced Maternity/Paternity Leave
• Season Ticket Loan
• Gym Flex membership
• Electric car scheme
• Dress for your Day Policy
• Agile Working Policy

Expected salary:

Location: Kent

Job date: Fri, 12 Jan 2024 08:06:27 GMT

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