Litigation Legal Assistant

Shakespeare Martineau is a Top 50 law firm that combines creativity, commerciality and clarity. We work with blue-chip companies, leading organisations, high street brands and individuals across the country.

As enterprising and original thinkers, we’re driven to create exceptional experiences for our clients and our people. We handle personal and business-critical issues and game-changing deals across many dynamic sectors. It’s stimulating and rewarding.

We’re hardworking and deeply ambitious about creating opportunities for our employees; to move forward and achieve our ambition together. We provide an environment in which you’re supported to reach your potential.

Our people have a blend of excellent technical and business skills with the talent to do things differently.

Here you’ll find top quality work, cutting edge training, high profile clients, and supportive colleagues. We think it could be time you joined us.

Our Volume & Consumer Business 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’ requirements.

Our Debt Collection team offers significant debt recovery expertise and act for many 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. We are all specialists in debt recovery and have experience of working in the credit sector as well as the legal world.

The role:

Are you bright, keen with lots of initiative and a practical approach?  Are you looking to develop a career in a dynamic and expanding law firm? If so read on....

We’ve got talented teams of people in Stratford and Birmingham looking for you!  You’ll be trained up to manage your own caseload. It’s a varied and busy workload involving plenty of client liaison so you will need to enjoy telephone work and juggling a busy day!

We can accommodate you if you want to work in either our Birmingham or Stratford-upon-Avon offices, however, initial training takes place in Stratford-upon-Avon and all new joiners would need to work at this office until training is completed.

The hours:

We are committed to providing a service to our clients between the hours of 8am to 8pm on Monday to Thursday, 8am to 6pm on a Friday and 9am to 1pm on a Saturday.  The role will normally involve working to shift patterns to accommodate these hours. This typically involves working one 11.30am – 8pm shift per week and no more than 2 Saturdays per month.

WE ARE OPEN TO CONSIDERING DIFFERENT WORKING PATTERNS INCLUDING PART-TIME, EVENINGS AND WEEKENDS – please discuss your specific requirements with a member of the recruitment team.

A typical shift pattern is:

Mondays to Thursdays: 8am - 4.30pm OR 9am - 5:30pm (one day to be worked 11.30am - 8pm)

Fridays: 8am - 4pm OR 9am -5pm

Saturdays (no more than 2 per month) 9am – 1pm

Your key duties will be:

• working as part of a team to progress debt collection 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:

• a minimum of 6 months’ experience of running your own caseload
• experience gained in the area of debt collection will be advantageous
• previous experience of using a case management system

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.