Client Finance Administrator

Birketts is an ambitious full service, top 100 UK law firm, operating in East Anglia, London 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 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.

We have one of the best regarded and largest dedicated property teams within any firm outside London, numbering over 100 specialists.

It is involved with all aspects of the construction and property industry and our work ranges from handling specific property and related transactions to advising on the property issues that arise in commercial transactions.  

• Providing financial administrative support; ensuring compliance with legal, firm wide and practice group specific policies and procedures
• Producing and processing invoices (including write offs and invoice narratives) and issuing to clients
• Generating regular credit control reminder letters, emails and statements to clients
• Liaising with clients by email, letter and telephone in a timely and professional manner regarding unpaid and outstanding debts
• Arranging aged debt meetings providing proactive assistance in order to resolve issues and speed up the payment process
• Keeping accurate and up to date records of all debt, ensuring that items are followed up and escalated to the central credit control officer at the appropriate point in time
• Keeping the team leader up to date with any potential issues with a client's ability to settle bills or general dissatisfaction.
• Resolving queries both internally and externally with regards recent and outstanding invoices

• 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.;
• To carry out any other duties as reasonably requested.

General Approach

• To show a 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 

• Proven experience of working as a Legal Secretary or in a credit control capacity
• Secretarial qualification or educated to GCSE or O level standard or equivalent.

• Excellent spelling and punctuation
• Excellent written and verbal communications and ability to communicate effectively with a broad range of individuals
• Excellent IT skills, including Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Excel
• Positive and enthusiastic approach to team work
• Good telephone manner
• Adaptable and flexible
• Self-motivated, ability to use initiative and provide pro-active support to fee-earners
• Ability to pay attention to detail and check own work
• Reliable and well organised
• Ability to remain calm and work under pressure to meet strict deadlines
• Commitment to ongoing learning and development

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.