PDL Secretary

Lewis Silkin is a UK top-100 commercial law firm with offices in London, Oxford, Cardiff, Dublin and Hong Kong. The firm is recognised by clients and industries alike as being distinct: for its deep understanding, insight and advice to creative, innovative and brand-focused businesses; for its market-leading international practice in employment, immigration and reward; and for delivering pragmatic, commercial advice in a refreshingly human way.

With 59 partners and more than 340 staff, the firm is structured around two key divisions; the Employment, Immigration and Reward (EIR) and the Creators, Makers and Innovators (CMI).

The employment team of Lewis Silkin is one of the leading employment law practices both domestically and internationally. The is amongst the largest in the UK with 23 employment / immigration partners and around 100 other specialist lawyers.

The team’s work comprises a mix of contentious and non-contentious matters for a diverse range of clients.  Our lawyers undertake a significant amount of business development, including giving seminars, producing Lewis Silkin branded publications and driving client relationships.  International advice is central to our practice and we are members of the Ius Laboris international alliance of employment lawyers. 

The overall objective of this role is to provide dedicated, day-to-day support to the EIR PDLs in their various responsibilities, tasks and projects. Core aspects of the PDLs’ work include: organising training programmes and legal updates for the team; supporting EIR client training, conference-speaking and business development work; managing, writing and editing EIR’s publications; and maintaining and developing precedents and knowledge materials.

Internal training

• EIR lunch arrangements (weekly)

  • Diarising and booking rooms (and appropriate equipment)

  • Circulating agenda, confirming numbers and ordering lunch

  • Liaising with any external speakers

  • Dealing with any MeetingZone recordings and adding to Intranet

• Internal training workshops (quarterly)

  • Identifying suitable dates for the speaker and fee earners, booking rooms (with facilities if necessary) and diarising

• EIR bundle meetings (monthly or bi-monthly)

  • Diarising, booking rooms (and appropriate equipment) and ordering lunch (if appropriate)

  • Arranging for the bundle to be printed and distributed internally and externally and also sending to maternity leavers

  • Ensuring the bundle volunteer spreadsheet is completed

• Trainee training (March and September)

  • Emailing new trainees on first day in EIR (March and September) and emailing Associates/Managing Associates requesting volunteers to deliver two training sessions – to be scheduled in first week in EIR

• NQ training (September – February)

  • Once NQ start dates are confirmed, scheduling training sessions and booking rooms (with facilities if appropriate) and diarising

• University of EIR (January – July)

  • Once training programme is confirmed, scheduling training sessions and booking rooms (with facilities if appropriate) and diarising for each PQE cohort (plus any new joiners/anyone who missed previous sessions for that PQE group)

  • Updating relevant spreadsheets to track training scheduled/to be scheduled

• Maternity returner update training (ad hoc)

  • Updating training document and master copy of hard copy training materials

• Cascade CPD recording

  • Ensuring all internal and external training is recorded on the Cascade spreadsheet for uploading each month

• Memberships

  • Ensuring annual membership fees for ELA, ILS and IRN are paid

  • Ensuring new joiners are added to the ELA membership list

• Miscellaneous for all training

  • Ensuring any handouts are printed and distributed to other offices and any slides are uploaded

  • Updating training diary on the Training Page on the intranet with all scheduled training

  • Uploading all internal training materials to the Training page on the intranet

  • Liaising with speakers for relevant training sessions and confirming attendance of people to be trained

  • Ensuring sign-in sheet is completed and recorded in CPD spreadsheet

  • Ensuring relevant master bundle of training materials is updated

  • Completing spreadsheets tracking scheduled/to be scheduled training

External training

• Booking external training

  • Booking ELA, ILS, 11KBW, Inn Group, MBL etc courses for fee earners.Arranging for payment, diarising and adding details to CPD spreadsheet

• Training Budget spreadsheet

• Ensuring any external bookings are entered into the budget spreadsheet

Client training

• Client training seminar programme

  • Organising prep meetings and deadlines to go into the relevant fee earner and secretary diaries

  • Arranging facilities, catering and meeters & greeters

  • Uploading any materials onto the client training and conference spreadsheet

• In House Employment Lawyers Club (IHELC)

  • Assisting with the production and circulation of the programme & materials for IHELC meetings (quarterly)

  • Liaising with delegates for IHELC meetings and members of the club generally

  • Arranging facilities, catering and meeters & greeters for IHELC meetings

New FE joiners to EIR

• Ensuring relevant training meeting appointments are in their diaries (lunch, bundle, workshop, Uni of WOW)

Publications

• Producing and amending Inbriefs (for employment and reward)

• Ensuring copies are printed and put in the carousel(s) and distributed to other offices

• Ensuring new or updated publications are added to the intranet

Know how

• Profiling and books

  • Ensuring the cases contained in the bundle are profiled in the employment law topic pages on the intranet

  • Adding new journal articles to the employment law topic pages on the intranet (and updating associated hard-copy files in EIRlibrary)

  • Assisting the PDLs in liaising with LRC/Integreon with regard to EIR’s books/journals/subscriptions

• Precedents

  • Amending precedents and adding new precedents to the Intranet

  • Preparing PDFDocs bundles of precedent materials for meetings where needed

Future of Work

• Supporting the annual Future of Work Hub event, liaising with external speakers and co-ordinating speaker conference calls

Team

• Assisting with any secretarial overflow, holiday/sickness cover for PA’s where necessary.

Candidate profile

The successful candidate will have a professional manner and first class communication skills.  They must be highly organised with excellent administration skills.  They will be able to demonstrate a pro-active approach to their work and be able to work on their own initiative, being confident in their own judgement.  They must enjoy working in an involved team environment and will need to have a flexible nature and a co-operative and willing attitude.

No agencies please.

Lewis Silkin is an equal opportunities employer.