Paralegal - Property (Motor Recoveries)
Job Introduction
The Claims Solutions - Property team in Birmingham provides solutions to the insurance property, recovery and legal costs sectors. Our specialist property and recovery team of 6 Partners, 7 Associates and 17 Solicitors and 9 paralegals provides expert and practical advice over a range of areas:
• Public Liability / Property Damage claims
• Professional indemnity claims - defending Architects, Surveyors, Engineers etc
• Property subsidence
• Property recovery
• Fraud recovery
• Credit hire recovery
• Motor recovery
The Claims Solutions – Property team is expanding and encompasses
• General property recoveries (fire, escape of water, impact of vehicles into property etc)
• Subsidence mitigation (involving bringing legal proceedings where necessary to mitigate damage to property caused by third party trees, failed foundations, failed underpinning, escape of water etc)
• Motor recoveries (involving recoveries against negligent third parties for causing damage to motor vehicles) and
• Costs involving negotiating legal costs
Role Responsibility
The role is to work as a paralegal within the Motor Recoveries team, this is a predominantly claims focused role.
Depending on workloads in the team the candidate will be asked to undertake
- Motor recoveries undertaking predominantly small claims litigation with task based work on fast -track and multi-track claims.
- Task based activities on claims for solicitors, carrying out preliminary investigations and evidence gathering as follows including ensuring the technical and expert evidence obtained by insurers loss adjusters is sufficient to prove causation;
- Obtaining witness statements; Contacting relevant parties to obtain contract documents; undertaking initial recovery of costs under the CCFA (no win no fee) agreement with insurers and preparing standard Part 8 Proceedings;
The candidate will:
- Exercise full compliance with DAC Beachcroft LLP protocols on billing and credit control and demonstrate a high level of financial management in respect of own files.
- Aim to achieve a minimum budgeted annual target of 1440 chargeable hours per year.
- Handle confidential information in line with the firms data security protocols.
The Ideal Candidate
- Have a minimum of a degree in Law (LLB or equivalent)
- Be interested in and preferably have a basic understanding of general contract and tort;
- Be interested in and willing to learn insurance property damage law;
- Be interested in and willing to learn the technical aspects of construction and property investigation as required for the role
- Be change oriented, with a positive, flexible approach towards the implementation of new initiatives.
- Be IT literate, with a good knowledge of Microsoft Office and previous knowledge or experience of a case management system would be an advantage but not essential.
- Willingness to follow a process driven system, working within set parameters.
- Be team orientated, with a willingness to share knowledge with and support other members of the team.
- Have an ability to adopt a commercial perspective rather than an ‘academic’ approach to claims settlement.
About the Company
We are a leading international legal business with over 2,400 colleagues and a diverse range of capabilities. We have 11 offices in the UK as well as offices in Dublin, Paris, Madrid, Singapore, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Miami. We also have associations/alliances with firms in Northern Ireland, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Brazil, Peru, Central America, Argentina, the USA, Australia and Germany.
We are known for our market-leading presence in sectors such as 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 the majority of the top 30 insurance and financial services companies operating in the UK. We are the asset management lawyers for the UK’s largest shopping centres and act for 9 of the UK’s top 10 housebuilders.
We have an impressive legal pedigree, with 155 Chambers UK 2019 practice area and individual lawyer rankings, including 30 rankings at 'Band 1' level. In Legal 500 UK, 2018, the firm received top tier ranking for 32 of its practice areas and 59 practice areas in the top two tiers. In March 2018, we were named as one of Legal Week's Best Legal Advisors for the third year running, achieving category-leading satisfaction scores for our commercial approach, service delivery, quality of legal advice, communication & responsiveness and overall relationships.
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.
DAC Beachcroft is an equal opportunities employer and we welcome applications from every sector of the community. We also welcome direct applications. 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.
DAC Beachcroft