Legal Secretary

IBB’s Commercial Real Estate group covers a range of development and commercial property work with 10 partners ranked as leaders in their field. The group has approximately 40 fee earners who are divided into five teams. These teams are the Residential Development team, Commercial Real Estate Team, Real Estate Dispute Resolution, Construction, and the New Homes team.

The team is led by the Support Manager. The team currently comprises of five legal secretaries/administrators. There is now a vacant post for a legal secretary/administrator (the post in question) to support the Construction team. The construction team undertake a combination of transactional work (e.g. contract drafting) and dispute work (e.g. court proceedings and arbitrations).  One member of the team (the consultant) conducts a small amount of development work.  This may include sales, leases, and development. 

The appointee should have good personal qualities and work well within a team and should also possess excellent organisational skills to include document and file management; good communications skills, written and verbal; accuracy and good attention to detail; be self-motivated; have previous experience as a legal secretary, or in a similar professional service firm; be confident with IT and computer packages, experience of accounts systems, and the preparation of invoices. Experience of working with Land Registry and HMRC documents would be an advantage. 

Many of the fee-earners in the group are largely self-sufficient and use voice recognition dictation systems, and/or use a facility for pure typing to be outsourced overseas.

From time to time, the appointee may be asked to assist other Commercial Real Estate teams.  Overflow work is managed by the Support Manager. 

The appointee will work in a flexible manner to meet deadlines for a high volume workload and will be able to work in an adaptable manner to tailor the service provided to meet individual requirements of each. 

1. Typing, complex document preparation and administrative support.  This may include populating and generating standard form contracts with minimal direct from the solicitor;
    
2. Production of bespoke email and letter correspondence.  This may include some simple drafting;
    
3. Attending to clients in person/by telephone on behalf of the Partner/solicitor as and when necessary;
    
4. File opening in accordance with IBB procedures to include data input, completion of internal forms and procedures, preparation of anti-money laundering documentation, setting up the paper file and file labels, and preparing the initial client care and opening letters for fee-earner to review;
    
5. File closing in accordance with IBB procedures to include data input, checking ledger balances, filleting files, returning client documents, completion of internal forms;
    
6. Preparation of invoices in accordance with IBB procedures, to include collating disbursement receipts, liaising with accounts and preparing all documentation to be sent to the client in accordance with defined procedures;
    
7. Incoming correspondence, outgoing copies, invoices, reports and paper files in/out of the filing system. Assisting with file checking and organising in preparation for quality audits;
    
8. Checking deeds in and out of the deeds storage facility. Collecting deeds from the floor and returning them to storage;
    
9. Printing, scanning, copying plans and deeds. Generally liaising with the document management centre on document production/collation tasks.  Taking responsibility for urgent tasks;
    
10. Ad hoc data input as and when required (CRM and PMS);
     
11. Preparing outgoing mail and enclosures for dispatch;
    Routine co-ordination of diary events with principal Partner and solicitors;
     
12. Handling internal/external meetings/bookings;
     
13. Keeping up to date on Partner/Fee Earner absences in order to respond to client queries;
     
14. Highlighting conflicting commitments and support with achieving alternative solutions.
     
15. Requesting and tracking the progress of searches with online providers such as   NLIS, Land Registry Direct and Companies House. Returning the results to the fee earner and filing copies.
     
16. Checking lengthy documentation and proofreading as required.
     
17. Assisting with site setups, scheduling of deeds and documents, preparing end of deal bibles and bundles of documents
     
18. Completing legal forms.
     
19. Any other duties as and when required

• Good O-level or GCSE passes (including English and Maths)

• Previous experience of working in a law firm or a high quality professional service firm
• Demonstrable ability to carry out a high and demanding turnover of work with the ability to adapt to provide a tailored service and understand the pressures and priorities of those that are being supported
• Experience of preparing complex correspondence and documents with using own initiative and with instruction where relevant
• Strong proof reading skills
• Advanced working knowledge of Microsoft applications including Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint and the ability to audio type.
• Strong oral and written communication skills (essential) with the ability to adapt communication style to suit the audience
• Excellent team player and knowing when to ‘step in’ and assist other team members
• Highly literate and numerate with the ability to read and assimilate complex written information
• Well organised and able to work to deadlines whilst maintaining the highest quality standards and attention to detail
• Experience of using a legal Practice Management System