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 agriculture and disputes team in Stratford-upon-Avon represents clients ranging from individuals to private companies and landed estates. We advise on a wide range of commercial litigation disputes and agricultural cases as well as all aspects of non-contentious agricultural property law. Our litigators and non-litigators are part of the same team and work closely together. The team handles a wide variety of disputes including those arising from partnerships and contracts as well professional negligence claims and agriculture related business and property disputes.

The role:

We are looking for a Litigation Legal Assistant to join our Agriculture & Disputes Team based in our Stratford-Upon-Avon office.

You will work as part of a team to provide paralegal and administrative support to help our legal teams deliver great service to our clients.  Your role will include the following:

Your key duties will be:

• supporting the lead partner in the team in relation to both his client facing and management roles
• providing timely and effective support to requests for assistance from members of the team
• accurate production of correspondence and documentation including through the use of digital dictation
• attending to clients in person and on the phone taking messages and assisting where appropriate
• use of a case management system to process and progress files
• managing file opening, closure and archiving
• producing bills and other financial administration
• managing diaries for the team, planning and organising meetings and making travel arrangements
• organising and maintaining departmental filing systems and document storage
• photocopying, scanning, faxing, printing, filing and other general administrative tasks

Skills and experience you will have:

• a minimum of 6-12 months previous organisational and administrative experience
• a minimum grade C pass at GCSE (or equivalent) in English Language and Mathematics
• confidence with IT systems to include Microsoft Word, Excel and ideally PowerPoint
• fast and accurate keyboard skills

Key competencies you will need:

• the ability to work well in a team and develop good working relationships with colleagues and others
• confident interpersonal skills with the ability to liaise openly and clearly with colleagues and clients
• to be able to produce a high standard of work, often to tight deadlines, whilst maintaining accuracy and good attention to detail
• the ability to prioritise well and be able to cope with changing demands
• to be able to demonstrate professionalism, flexibility, initiative and self confidence

About you- you will be:

• highly enthusiastic, willing to go 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.