Personal Assistant day to day duties:
- Coordination of tasks, delegating to DPs and AA teams ensuring the completed task is checked (as far as reasonably practicable) and ready to return to the fee earner. Typing short or urgent correspondence as and when required
- Producing documents which are too confidential and sensitive to be produced by DPS team
- Proactive diary management looking ahead at fee earner diaries to remind them of diary commitments and taking responsibility for ensuring that they have all supporting paperwork and information for each meeting or appointment
- Arranging internal and external meetings and conference calls ensuring the smooth running of such meetings making the appropriate arrangements for any internal meetings (e.g. room set up, ordering refreshments), liaising with other departments as required
- Attending meetings to take minutes as required
- Booking training and courses
- Organising and arranging travel bookings in conjunction with the Marketing team, including hotels/taxis/flights/insurances/IT equipment and producing/amending itineraries for all external appointments or trips
- Providing pro-active client liaison including taking messages, passing on the information and dealing with queries as appropriate in a professional and timely manner
- Dealing with new client enquiries made by phone and email and passing on the information obtained for consideration by relevant fee earner
- Checking voicemails and emails when fee earners are away from the office, ensuring urgent messages are redirected as appropriate
- Helping fee earners to manage their email inbox by responding to clients to acknowledge receipt of emails (as requested) and filing emails (as directed)
- Escalating any issues or concerns to Team Leader or the SSM so that a resolution can be found in a timely manner
Personal Assistant File/Matter duties:
- Assisting with file opening by carrying out conflict checks under supervision and as directed by the fee earner, passing all results to the fee earner for consideration, obtaining approval to open file and dealing with queries from the AA team concerning opening the physical file and the matter on MatterSphere
- Producing draft engagement letters, terms of business, funding agreements, cancellation notices as required for fee earners to review and approve
- Monitoring new matters to ensure all of the necessary information and documents have been received (e.g. engagement letters/instruction forms/monies on account/money laundering documentation and other compliance documents) informing fee earners when documents are not received and assisting as required
- Managing matters in MatterSphere, including naming, saving and filing documents and correspondence, management of contacts, associates, estimates and capturing other practice area specific data
- Obtaining up-to-date counsel/expert/other third party fee note(s)
- Obtaining transcripts and documents from the Court
- Co-ordinating outgoing post
- Undertaking file closure, including ensuring the file is properly prepared for archive and later destruction
Finance and Billing duties:
- Assisting fee earners with billing procedures including: a review of pre-bills and making amendments as required; preparing final bills and covering letters; processing write-offs and reversals/credit notes as instructed by fee earners
- Assisting fee earners to manage client accounts as directed by the fee earner (including organising and returning client monies and ensuring zero balances at matter closing)
- Completing of disbursement forms and confirming that they are on the system
- Supporting fee earners in the chasing of debts as requested
- Chasing fee earners for unposted time
- Time recording for fee earners when on leave (if previously directed by the fee earner to do so)
Marketing/BD duties:
- Organising, supporting and preparing for all marketing activities, such as events, seminars and Chambers submissions
- Updating the CRM database
- Working with fee earners to prepare tender documents (whilst delegating the majority of document production to the DPS team)
Document Production Specialist duties:
- Producing and amending all documents from a variety of sources in accordance with house style, adhering to the relevant standard operating procedures and service level agreements for your role.
- Quality checking, formatting and proof-reading documents to ensure that completed documents are delivered accurately and to the required standard.
- Working collaboratively with others in the DPS team to ensure the team provides and excellent, consistent service to the Firm.
- Working collaboratively with PAs and Administrative Assistants (AAs) to ensure successful completion of tasks.
- Sharing knowledge and expertise within the DPS team and PAs as appropriate.
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