Administration Assistant

Shoosmiths - UK Law Firm of the Year Winner at the Legal Week British Legal Awards 2015.

A leading UK law firm with a network of offices from the South Coast to Scotland, working together as one national team. An innovative practice and the first top 100 law firm to achieve “Gold Standard” Investors in People, our values and culture are not just words on our website but are the heartbeat of the firm. The lack of barriers between departments, a real lack of hierarchy, zero tolerance for arrogance and pomposity makes Shoosmiths a fantastic place to work.

Our Recoveries Services Group provides a complete range of debt recovery services utilising cutting edge technology and with specialists dealing with different debt types, all operating under a centralised management structure allowing us to deliver consistently excellent service. Our structure ensures we can provide a full range of volume recoveries and litigation options, whilst ensuring that we have the expertise and experience to deal with complex and technical issues arising from volume recoveries.

We’ve got a great opportunity for an Administration Assistant to join our Recoveries Services team in Edinburgh on a six month fixed term contract. As part of this team, you’ll be working on behalf of a wide base of clients, including public sector bodies and financial institutions. The team is headed up locally by Rod Macphail who “reaps praise from clients; ‘there is little in the area of debt recovery that he does not know’.” (The Legal 500).

The main purpose of your role as an Administration Assistant will be to provide support to your colleagues within the Recoveries Services department. You will be making and taking telephone calls from customers and clients and third parties to deal with any enquiries and also establish a first point of contact with new customers. There will be elements of file management within the case management system and you’ll also be completing assigned tasks within the case management system.

Full training on the case management system will be given upon joining and you will also be given training to broaden your knowledge of the debt recovery and litigation processes, so you are better equipped to identify areas of improvement and deal with more complex tasks. In addition, you’ll have personal responsibility for compliance with all relevant regulatory requirements, as well as client and internal Service Level Agreements.

We are looking for organised and efficient candidates who have the ability to prioritise whilst maintaining accuracy and attention to detail. You will need to be able to use your own initiative to carry out tasks independently when necessary, but as collaboration is key at Shoosmiths, you will also need to be able to work alongside team members. Our open plan offices make it easy for you to work together with your colleagues and achieve your goals.

We pride ourselves on our ability to deliver a quality service to both internal and external clients with a friendly and helpful approach and so are looking for candidates who can demonstrate this too. Excellent written and verbal communication and listening skills will help you achieve this. You will need to be IT literate with experience of using Word, Excel and the internet and have good numeracy skills.

As part of our busy Recoveries Services team, you will be flexible with the capability to adapt to change, adopt new practices and cope under pressure but with the ability to recognise when to seek assistance.

We work hard here and expect you to as well but a healthy work/life balance remains important to us.

For this role, you will need a minimum of 5 Grades 1-3 (or equivalent) to include Maths and English.

We are also looking for candidates with previous experience in an Administration role so that you might hit the ground running in the position.

Due to the nature of the work undertaken, confirmation of employment will be subject to a variety of checks which will be carried out once an offer of employment is accepted.  These checks will include employment references covering the last 5 years, proof of ID, proof of address covering the last 5 years, Personnel Vetting credit search (which will only highlight insolvency or County Court Judgments - should any adverse data show on the Personnel Vetting search then any offer of employment made will be withdrawn).Terrorism Check (against data supplied by the Bank of England) and a DBS check previously known as a Criminal Records check. 

Benefits Package

Shoosmiths has an outstanding benefits package; we believe that all staff should be rewarded for their commitment to the continued success of the firm. These can include:

• A pension scheme with employer contributions of up to 5.5%
• Generous life assurance cover for peace of mind, up to 8 times salary
• Up to 23 paid working days holiday per annum with the option to buy up to 8 additional days. You can choose to 'flex' twice a year - January and July
• 'Happy Birthday!' - have a free day off to celebrate and a £50 voucher to spend! (We won't take it from your annual entitlement)
• Childcare vouchers which are not subject to tax or NI
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Staff introduction bonus scheme
• Corporate discounts on a wide variety of products and services
• Discounted conveyancing and legal advice, for instance for wills and family trusts

The application process

If successful, you will be contacted by a member of our recruitment team to arrange an interview in our Edinburgh office.

Click apply now to be considered!

Shoosmiths is a committed Equal Opportunities employer promoting equality of opportunity. This means that everyone who either applies to or works for the firm is treated equally, whatever their gender, age, ethnic origin, nationality, marital status, disability, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.