Legal Secretary (Commercial Litigation) - London
Job Introduction
DACBeachcroft has an exciting opportunity for an experienced administrator or secretary to join our Commercial Litigation team as a Legal Secretary on a full-time, permanent, hybrid basis in our centrally located London office.
Reporting into the Secretarial Team Leader, the post holder will form an integral part of an established team of secretaries, where 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 'Global London' 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. If this applies to you and you feel you meet the minimum criteria for this vacancy as set out in this advert then please contact recruitment@dacbeachcroft.com in confidence, quoting the reference number for this vacancy in the subject box of your email, and a member of the Recruitment team will be in touch.
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 managing 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:
- 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 adhoc 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
- 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 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 / One Drive)
- 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
About the Company
We are a leading international legal business with over 2,900 colleagues and a diverse range of capabilities. We have 11 offices in the UK as well as offices in Dublin, Madrid, Paris, Milan, Rome, Singapore, Argentina Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Miami. We also have associations/alliances with firms in Malaysia, Brazil, Peru, Central America, the USA, Australia and Germany.
We are a broad-based commercial firm with a strong heritage in insurance, health and real estate. This is complemented by a fast-growing Business Advisory capability. We represent a wide range of clients, ranging from household names to government departments and NHS bodies. We act for all of the UK’s top-ten insurers, we are market leaders in the provision of strategic, commercial and regulatory advice to providers and commissioners in the health sector, and in real estate we advise all of the UK’s top-12 housebuilders.
We have an impressive legal pedigree, with 142 Chambers UK 2021 practice area and individual lawyer rankings. In Legal 500 UK 2021, the firm received a top tier ranking for 37 of its practice areas, and 58 DACB lawyers were singled out in the ‘Leading Individual' rankings.
Our successes have been recognised by the legal industry and the markets in which we operate. These accolades include two top prizes in the ‘Excellence in Business Development’ and ‘Excellence in Technology & Innovation’ categories of the 2020 Law Society Excellence Awards – the highest accolade for law firms in England & Wales. Our health sector team won the ‘Crisis Management Team of the Year’ award at the 2020 British Legal Awards for its support to the NHS at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and our Cyber & Data Risk team received the ‘Business Development Innovation Award’ at the 2020 Legal Innovation Awards, as well as ‘Cyber Law Firm of the Year’ at the prestigious Insurance Insider Cyber Rankings Awards, for its market-leading suite of digital tools to help our clients prepare for and respond to cyber and data risk crises.
Our vision is to be leading business advisers, recognised for our insight and our outstanding commitment to clients, and for being the place where talented people want to work. For further details on our work and our culture, please visit www.dacbeachcroft.com.
Application Details
At DAC Beachcroft, we don’t just accept your differences we celebrate them. From bespoke solutions for our clients, to treating you like an individual. Our strength comes from your diverse ideas and bringing the whole you to work. So if you’re good at what you do, come as you are. We welcome direct applications and are happy to talk flexible working.
We also want you to be at your very best. Please feel free to let us know of any changes we can make at any point in the recruitment process that will help support your application. If this opportunity sounds of interest to you, please make an application and submit your CV. Your application will be dealt with in the strictest of confidence.
Note for Recruitment Agencies – the DAC Beachcroft recruitment team is responsible for managing all current vacancies through direct hiring and referrals wherever possible. We do work with recruitment agencies and where we require external support we will formally release those vacancies to the agencies on our Preferred Supplier List deemed best placed to assist us. Speculative CVs sent by any agency to any DAC Beachcroft employee without a specific request by the recruitment team will not be accepted and with no introduction fee applicable. Our recruitment team can be contacted at recruitment@dacbeachcroft.com
DAC Beachcroft