Norton Rose Fulbright Careers
Job Description
Junior Legal PA / Junior Legal Secretary / Practice Support Junior Executive
Job Location
London
Practice Group/Department
Corporate, M&A and Securities
Role
Secretarial
Job Title
Junior Legal PA / Junior Legal Secretary / Practice Support Junior Executive
Work Type
Full Time - Permanent
Description
We're Norton Rose Fulbright - a global law firm with over 50 offices
and 7,000 employees worldwide.
As well as the relevant skills and experience, we're looking for
people who are innovative, commercial and value the work that they do.
We celebrate multiple approaches and points of view and believe
diversity drives innovation, so we're building a culture where
difference is valued. Our office is based right next to Tower Bridge
and within striking distance of The City and although we are all
working remotely currently, longer term we are proud to offer a hybrid
working model retaining the best elements of remote and in-office
working to create a culture of high performance though flexibility and
encouraging a healthy work/life balance of working arrangements.
The Role
The delivery of high end legal services is becoming more complex and
sophisticated. This is being driven by new ways of structuring teams,
the incorporation of new disciplines like legal project management and
the use of new technology. This role will be located in our London
office and you will be responsible for providing high value dedicated
support to fee earners across the business. The role sits within the
Practice Support Office under our newly formed Practice Services
pillar, aimed at ensuring that our fee earners and clients receive the
highest quality support and service delivery.
Key responsibilities
Client facing / Administration
- Builds an understanding of the nature of the team and fee earners'
work and plays an active role in the support that you can deliver
e.g.: getting to know their clients; building relationships with the
clients and their PAs; and proactively arranging regular catch ups
for your fee earners and ensuring outcomes are followed up on
- Attends fee earner/client requested meetings to take minutes and
follow up on any action points
- Acts as a subject matter expert for piloting of new technologies
and processes
- Manages demanding and complex diaries and inboxes, using own
judgement to prioritise and deliver efficient scheduling of meetings
and proactively resolving potential clashes and preparing any
necessary paperwork
- Organises complex travel and prepares full door-to-door travel itineraries
- Manages team SharePoint site, including updating any material
documents that are already on the site
- Manages a varied workload, balancing different demands and deadlines
- Drafts internal and external communications ensuring it is
delivered through the appropriate methods to capture the recipients
- Proactively builds relationships across the business both within
fee earning and business services teams
Matter Management and Billing Support
- Providing full matter management support including opening new
client/matters successfully; assisting with first draft of
Engagement Letters; submitting further changes via matter
managements forms when necessary; file/matter closure; archiving of
closed matters
- Provides support to and work with the Legal Project Management
team as they support partners with matter related tasks throughout
the lifecycle of the matter i.e. supporting fee earners with matter
management, matter openings, reporting, billing etc
- Creating reports for partners utilising SAP tiles and LPM PowerBI dashboards
- Bill reviewer, taking responsibility for quality and accuracy
- Liaise closely with WIP Controllers in respect of all billing
instructions particularly in relation to high value/profile matters
and/or matters with tight budgets
- Keeping accurate records of expenses/disbursements/fees for client
billing, liaising with billing department to monitor payment of fees
and responding to internal and external requests for back up
documentation and further information. Being proactive and knowing
where bills are in every stage of the process is of paramount importance
- Managing local counsel invoices
- Managing client PO numbers
- Weekly check of pending and held files
Business Development / Marketing
- Works with fee earners, marketing and business development teams
to ensure regional objectives are met. This includes, but is not
limited to, client development, profile raising, marketing and
communications (including online and content marketing), pitching
and event management
- Captures and logs pitch opportunities
- Ability to do first draft pitches utilising information available internally
- Proactively updates fee earners CV's on a regular basis and
ensures they are loaded onto the system
- Provides technical support, ensuring the layout of the documents
is correct and to a high standard including adapting presentation
formats and producing placemats, and liaising with the brand and
design team where appropriate
- Ensures follow up is sought from client post pitch; track and act
on actions which arise; assess how feedback can be used to drive
behavioural change
- Provides support in relation to business development events
relating to the team / department and be responsible for assisting
with follow-ups
Team / Admin Support
- Post completion support
- Provides support on preparing bibles using PDF Docs Binder and
Litera Transact
- Managing and/or providing support on arranging client events and training
- LMS, creating new training events for the knowledge team and
updating training records
- Arranging annual team away days and team events taking into
account team budget
- Providing collaboration support across all teams and being
flexible to provide direct support to a specific team when needed
- Specialised document work support i.e. BIMCO SmartCon to prepare documents
- Utilises a workflow tool to undertake requests and delegates tasks
to appropriate support teams when relevant
- All other tasks associated with the need of the team to ensure
support is being delivered effectively
General approach
- Supports fee earners throughout the matter lifecycle
- Understands and uses legal/corporate terminology, knows how the
department operates and who and what the Key Clients and Headlights are
- Immediately clarifies instructions from fee earners should they be
unclear or if deadlines are not made explicit
- 'Go to' contact in terms of where to source knowledge and
information throughout the practice
- Demonstrates a client service delivery focus with the ability to
professionally communicate and deal with people at all levels, both
internally and externally
- Shows a positive approach and interest in the work of fee earners
and the wider team
- Takes ownership of queries: resolves, escalates or identifies
alternative contacts as appropriate and uses initiative to actively
seek solutions to problems
- Supports and builds collaborative working relationships with fee
earners, other Business Services teams as well as other members of
the team and actively works for the interests of the whole team and business
- Consult with colleagues and specialists to ensure you and your
colleagues contribute to knowledge sharing and facilitates the
constant development of skills and expertise
- Demonstrates a continuous improvement and service excellence mind-set
- Acts as change agents on the ground to lead on change and support
fee earners through change and new ways of working
- Exercises confidentiality, discretion and personal sensitivity in
all aspects of role
Person specification The Candidate
Essential
- Embraces, promotes the use and becomes a super-user of technology
and proactively identifies opportunities to improve ways of working
- Excellent communication, organisational and administrative skills
- Strong time management and prioritisation skills will be required
to support a demanding group of Fee Earners at different levels of seniority
- Attention to detail: proof reads all work, checking for spelling,
grammar and consistency
- Proactive approach and enthusiasm to work independently and as
part of a team
- Shows a willingness to learn and develop skills
- Drives forward initiatives to create a continued sense of
"team" within your virtual peer group
- Must be flexible to work outside contractual hours when required
Skills & Experience
- Intermediate-Advanced user of key software packages, (i.e.
Word/PowerPoint/Excel/Office 365 suite of tools including
SharePoint) and takes responsibility for any training (e.g. MOS) to
improve relevant skills needed to meet the needs of the business
- Demonstrates excellent written communication skills, sufficiently
developed to draft non-routine correspondence and emails, as
instructed by fee earners
- Leadership ability - this candidate must be able to build a strong
reputation within the business and deliver excellent service
- 1-2 years' experience in a legal support or professional services
environment is desirable
- Experience of working with clients and ability to be client facing
is desirable
- Previous billing and marketing experience desirable
- Good level of numeracy
- Good English language and grammar skills
Our clients come first and whilst we have a high performance
culture and work hard as a team, in return we offer a range of
competitive benefits
including:
In addition, we are proud of our established health and wellbeing
programme which supports our employees through mental, physical and
lifestyle challenges.
Norton Rose Fulbright is committed to promoting a diverse
workforce and an inclusive workplace where everyone can realise
their full potential and career ambitions on the basis of merit and
skill. We offer a range of family friendly and inclusive employment
policies, flexible working arrangements, and employee networks.Find
more about Diversity and Inclusionhere.
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