Litigation Legal Assistant

Shakespeare Martineau is a leading law firm that combines creativity, commerciality and clarity. We work with blue-chip companies, leading organisations, high street brands and individuals across the country.

Our multi-disciplinary team delivers a broad range of specialist legal services, and particularly stands out for its expertise across sectors including, but not limited to: energy, education, banking and financial services, investment funds, healthcare and advanced manufacturing. 

We’re proud of our people’s varied backgrounds and expertise. Our different qualities stand out and make us interesting to our clients.

We firmly believe in working hard and being ambitious. We look to recruit and develop talented people to achieve their potential - and who will contribute to achieving ours too.

Here you can fulfil your ambitions, whatever they are and however rapidly you want to achieve them. Together, and individually, we create exceptional results.

Our Litigation & Dispute Resolution group has a long-standing experience of working with some of the most successful and influential businesses in the UK and also internationally. Our specialist teams combine expertise with a sound understanding of the commercial landscape to provide exceptional solutions for every aspect of our clients’ corporate requirements.

Our Debt Collection team offers significant debt recovery expertise and act for several large national companies. We have loyal clients who we have served well for 25 years or more and our client base continues to grow at a steady pace, with many new referrals coming from our existing clients.  We operate a fast, efficient and cost-effective bulk debt recovery service using both the County Court Bulk Centre (Money Claims Online) and the County Court Money Claims Centre (manual claims) - speeding up the debt collection process for our clients.  We are all specialists in debt recovery and have experience of working in the credit sector as well as the legal world.

The role:

We are looking for a Litigation Legal Assistant to join our Stratford-based Debt Collection team.  The role is to provide paralegal support to more senior fee earners in the team, specialising in debt recovery and possession work.

We are committed to providing a service to our clients between the hours of 8am and 8pm on Monday to Thursday, 8am and 6pm on a Friday and 8am to 1pm on a Saturday.  Therefore, the role will involve working to shift patterns to accommodate these hours, which will involve working one 11.30 – 8pm shift per week and no more than 2 Saturdays per month.

The shift patterns, which will be worked on a rota basis, will be:

09:00am – 5:30pm with an hour for lunch on Monday – Thursday

09.00am – 5.00 pm with an hour for lunch on Friday

11:30am – 8:00pm with an hour for lunch on one day per week Monday – Thursday

08:00am – 1:00pm on Saturday – no more than 2 per month.

Your key duties will be:

• working as part of a team to progress debt recovery and possession matters
• having responsibility for the day to day management of your own case load
• processing claims from initial instruction through to, and including, all methods of enforcement
• issuing and preparing claims and statutory demands
• liaising with enforcement officers
• liaising with and meeting clients

Skills and experience you will have:

• some previous experience gained in debt recovery or possession work
• a sound knowledge of the litigation process

Key competencies you will need:

• the ability to work well in a team and develop good working relationships with colleagues and others
• good communication skills with the confidence to liaise openly and clearly with colleagues and clients
• the ability to produce a high standard of work, sometimes under pressure, whilst maintaining accuracy and good attention to detail
• to be able to demonstrate flexibility, initiative and confidence in your own ability

About you – you will be:

• highly enthusiastic, willing to the extra mile and be happy to go beyond the job description
• respectful towards others and have a positive, willing and ‘can do’ attitude
• keen to learn, interested in driving your own career progression and be proactive in taking ownership of this.

Due to the nature of the work undertaken, confirmation of employment will be subject to a variety of checks which will be carried out once an offer of employment is accepted. Details of the checks can be found here.

Shakespeare Martineau is a committed equal opportunities employer. We seek to attract, develop and retain talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures. We value and respect individuality and encourage a culture within our business where people can be themselves and be valued for their strengths and experiences. Everyone who either applies to or works for the firm is treated equally, regardless of their gender, age, ethnic origin, nationality, marital status, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.