Executive Summary
We are seeking a Paralegal to join our leading Charity and Social Enterprise department. This is an opportunity to get hands-on experience of our clients in this sector, many of whom are household names, and to develop your skills and experience in this area.
The role
- This is an excellent opportunity for a Paralegal to join our top ranked Charity and Social Enterprise team.
- The role is unique in that the team’s work is focused on our charity and not-for-profit clients. We also have a growing commercial sector clientele, many of whom are within the impact economy sector. This is a unique opportunity to use your skills and experience to make a real difference. You will have a high degree of client contact, developing your own relationships and networks.
About you
- You are a graduate with experience as a paralegal and/or a Law Degree, or graduate level legal qualification (such as the Graduate Diploma in Law or equivalent) – a postgraduate level legal qualification such as the Legal Practice Course is desirable for this role, but not essential.
- You have excellent written and verbal communication skills including a focus on attention to detail.
- The ability to build, maintain and nurture relationships.
- A client-centric approach.
- Teamwork – there is a place for individual effort but we highly value a collaborative approach.
- A results-focused mentality – we hope you’ll challenge the status quo if you feel it’ll benefit our work.
- You are technically excellent, commercially minded and have great people skills.
- A genuine interest in the work we do; we encourage questions about the business and invite you to test assumptions and propose ideas.
Finally, we want people whose values reflect our own and who feel inspired working in a firm with a strong social purpose.
Key responsibilities
- Perform expected paralegal duties as delegated by fee earners. Examples include, but are not limited to:
- Legal research and summarising legal documents.
- Provide support to fee earners on transactional work in both the debt and equity finance spaces.
- Review, summarise and monitor relevant regulatory updates.
- General company secretarial tasks
- Record attendance in meetings.
- Support fee earners on matter management where requested.
- Support fee earners in knowledge and business development such as research and preparing documentation and presentations.
- Attend client board meetings and produce meeting minutes.
- Communicate effectively such as drafting legal documents, client correspondence, legal forms, letters of advice.
- Participate in team meetings and sector groups, including coordinating meetings and circulating information related to sectors.
- Contribute to and update firm legal precedents and knowhow.
- Support fee earners in our Education practice.
- Be proactive in providing high quality legal service to our clients.
- Display effective time management and career development.
- Attend internal and external training as and when required.
- Keep up to date with developments in law and practice.
- Engage with the firm’s internal forums and programmes.
Specific tasks may change over time, so we’ll need you to be adaptable and flexible as we continue to meet our clients’ needs.
About our culture
- A one firm approach means working together and improving to achieve common goals and to provide a consistent Bates Wells experience.
- As a values-driven firm we show commitment to our clients, our people, the environment and society. We take into account the Climate Emergency and Biodiversity Crisis in developing our business strategy.
- We want to have a positive impact on our people who are our greatest asset so that they can have a positive impact on others. Purpose is baked into our partnership deed.
- We promote a strong work/life balance with at least 25 days holiday with the opportunity to buy more and a ‘Summer in the City’ early finish.
- We have an agile and hybrid working environment – this means you might sit next to a different colleague every day or choose to work from our rooftop garden if you are in the office.
- Our benefits and wellbeing package includes firm matching pension contributions, private medical insurance plus a medical benefit cash plan, discretionary bonus arrangements, life assurance, subsidised gym memberships, lifestyle discount scheme and a firm-wide profit-sharing scheme.
- Everyone gets a bonus if there is one - a proportion of the LLP profit is distributed to our people when we exceed our financial thresholds.
About our Charity and Social Enterprise team
Our top ranked Charity and Social Enterprise department handles the most complex, high profile and high value matters for charities, philanthropists and businesses. The depth and breadth of our practice, the range of our technical knowledge and our personal commitment to serve the sector as a whole mean that we act for clients of all sizes across the whole spectrum of non-profit activity.
About the opportunity
- We encourage all our colleagues to pursue their personal interests through their practice, contribute to business development and work cross-departmentally through our wide range of exceptionally strong sector groups.
- Colleagues are provided with career development support, for example encouragement to co-manage client relationships and be involved in the development of the department’s strategy.
- Our team structure ensures a supportive environment coupled with the opportunity to work collaboratively with colleagues across the department and with other teams in the firm.
- The firm has a competency framework which sets out the competencies we expect from people at each stage of their career.
- Specific tasks may change over time, so we’ll need you to be adaptable and flexible as we continue to meet our clients’ needs.
How to find out more about us
Don’t forget to review our website (https://bateswells.co.uk) and ask around about us to find out more and whether we’re the right fit for you.
Contact:
If you have any questions about this vacancy or require any reasonable adjustments to be made to the process due to a disability, please email:
Daisy Mortimer (d.mortimer@bateswells.co.uk) |
