Legal Secretary

Birketts is a full service, top 100 UK law firm, operating in Cambridge, Chelmsford, Ipswich, Norwich and the surrounding areas.

With a rich heritage spanning over 150 years we’ve built an enviable track record advising businesses, institutions and individuals in the UK and internationally.
Throughout our history our ethos has remained simple: we provide clear legal advice and value and insight to our clients.

We set out to truly understand our clients’ needs and help realise their ambitions.

We believe that through this approach and a combination of technical excellence and high quality service we can develop long-lasting partnerships and become our clients' solicitor of choice.

Top Ranked' Chambers 2018 and 'Top Tier' Legal 500 2017.

Birketts’ team of over 40 corporate lawyers has the legal expertise, range of experience and depth of resource to support and advise businesses on a wide variety of corporate transactions, including mergers, acquisitions and disposals, start-ups and new ventures, re-organisations, and private equity and venture capital fund-raisings. Our clients include entrepreneurs, private equity and venture capital funds and financial institutions, owner-managed and privately owned businesses, and UK and international public companies. 

We advise clients across a range of sectors and at different stages in the business life cycle from start-ups to mergers and acquisitions, buy-outs and buy-ins, development capital fund raisings, re-financings and exits.  

As well as UK deals, our team is experienced in dealing with international transactions, including acquisitions of overseas companies and disposals of UK companies to international buyers.

Additional support is provided to the corporate team by specialist tax, commercial,  IP/IT, employment and property teams. 

To work as part of a secretarial team to provide professional, proactive, high level secretarial/administration support to an allocated group of fee earners and to the wider fee earning team.

Technical ability:

• To be expert in a variety of software packages such as Bighand, Microsoft Word to produce correspondence and documents, spreadsheets and presentations and ensure relevant documentation is produced to a high standard to meet Clients’ and Fee Earners’ expectations and deadlines;
• To format, paginate, number and present documents in Birketts LLP house style;
• To proof read all work, checking for spelling and grammar;
• To manage marketing data created by the fee earners and liaise with the marketing department;
• Co-ordinate and deliver various ad-hoc projects as directed

Administrative skills:

• Manage diaries of allocated fee earners in Microsoft Outlook to include making appointments, arranging meetings/conferences, sending and responding to invites and booking restaurants;
• Occasionally process expense claims, payment requisition forms, returned advances;
• To accurately maintain and update client and other relevant contact details on the firm’s database;
• To process all forms including new client form, new matter form, money laundering form, training course booking forms etc.;
• Assist in maintaining compliant and accurate file management and office systems and develop and maintain a good level of understanding of firm policy and process;
• To carry out photocopying and scanning as required.

Professional Skills:

• To immediately clarify instructions from fee earners should they be unclear or if deadlines are not made explicit;
• To respond to internal and external telephone enquiries politely and professionally and take accurate telephone messages(name/number/company), passing them on to the relevant fee earners etc. immediately;
• To proactively support other members of the secretarial team and to provide cover as and when necessary to ensure that work is completed to a high standard and meets the required deadlines;
• To provide full support to fee earners in the full range of activities that are performed and to carry out any other duties as reasonably requested.

General Approach

• To show a very positive approach and interest in the work that your fee earners are undertaking;
• Show initiative when responding to queries and actively try to seek solutions to problems;
• To support your fee earners when clients are demanding the work product to be delivered;
• To support and build working relationships with your own fee earners as well as other members of the team and to actively work for the interests of the whole team;     
• To support and build working relationships with your colleagues in the secretarial team and to actively get involved in working activities within the team;

• To effectively liaise with staff from other departments and external contacts as required.

• Proven IT/audio typing skills;
• Either previous secretarial experience (ideally gained within the legal sector) and/or an individual with the qualifications and experience to have the potential to re-train
• Educated to GCSE or O level standard or equivalent.

We are committed to recruiting individuals on merits of suitability for each role, on the basis of qualifications and experience. All applications are treated fairly and equally regardless of sexual orientation, race, disability, religious beliefs and any other protected characteristic, ensuring that there are equal opportunities at all stages of the recruitment process.