Personal Assistant
Express Solicitors are a top 200 Law firm that specialises in personal injury. We cover every area of personal injury including public liability, occupier’s liability, road traffic accidents, employer’s liability, industrial disease, serious injuries and clinical negligence matters. At Express, we pride ourselves in the work we do helping injured people.
We are Law Society accredited and are a Legal 500 Leading Firm for both Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence. Six of our Partners are members of the Law Society Specialist Personal Injury Panel and one of our Partners is a member of the Law Society Specialist Clinical Negligence Panel.
Due to our continued success and growth, Express Solicitors are currently looking for a Personal Assistant (PA) to work closely with one of our Partners. The role is working on a 1 on 1 basis and will cover a range of departments due to the nature of the relevant Partners role.
The PA role will involve audio typing, taking minutes at inter-team meetings, diary management, elements of case management as well as liaising with other departments in respect of a range of issues. It will also include the distribution of reports and monitoring of responses. You may, from time to time be requested to assist with other PA duties for other members of the team which could include liaising with Courts, defendants and clients. There is a focus on client care and you will be working collaboratively to assist in maintaining client relationships through assistance with various managerial tasks. We are looking for proactive & personable candidates who must have secretarial / PA experience, preferably within Personal Injury.
Express Solicitors is a modern & innovative firm, with an excellent reputation in the market, rated highly on Trust Pilot and recognised in the Legal 500 publication.
Job description
- To prepare correspondence and documents through audio-typing and word processing and ensure correct enclosures.
- To make appointments, arrange meetings and to manage the partner’s diary, including arranging cover for key tasks where appropriate.
- To assist with the updating of and distribution of various reports together with accurate record keeping ensuring compliance can be checked.
- To take accurate minutes where required of internal department meetings and distribute them within a reasonable timeframe.
- To support in the efficient management of cases, including monitoring important dates/deadlines, autonomously producing chaser letters and chaser calls, dealing with routine incoming letters.
- To attend clients both in person and on the telephone and to provide such support in a professional and friendly manner in keeping with the firm’s standards for client care.
- To assist with the preparation of trial bundles.
- To provide support to other secretaries and the administration team as required.
- To undertake any specific training when required to do so and overall to have a responsibility towards self-development.
- To ensure the confidentiality of all the firm’s and clients’ documentation and information.
- Undertake filing as required.
- When working on a file always making sure there is a task in there for the next step. Review the file and make sure if you have e.g. requested a Form of Authority, the appropriate chaser task is set.
- Fully complete jobs. If a dictation asks you to make a call to arrange e.g. an appointment, you may not mark the dictation as closed until the appointment is made (especially where it takes repeated attempts contact the client).
- Update case details such as client email address and / or 3rd party details. We are required to send as much correspondence as possible electronically.
- Help us live the Express Service Pledge and deliver excellent levels of client care.
- Good standard of literacy, grammar & accuracy.
- Any other ad hoc duties as and when required.
Person specification
Essential criteria
- Demonstrable legal secretarial experience within personal injury.
- Computer literate.
- Excellent command of English spelling, punctuation and grammar (a short typing test will be required at interview.)
- Excellent audio typing skills
- Excellent customer service skills, including professional and friendly telephone manner.
- Be pro-active and use a high degree of self-management and initiative
- Excellent Organisational Skills
- Audio typing speed of 65+ words per minute
- Experience of working with excel documents, court forms and creating pleadings
Desirable criteria
- Experience of digital dictation, ideally Big Hand
- Knowledge of the Proclaim case management system
- Knowledge of Social Media Platforms
Salary & Working Hours
- Dependent on experience.
- Our standard working hours are 8:30am to 5:30pm, but we are happy to consider alternative arrangements and reduced hours, please tell us upon application what you are looking for.
Holiday Entitlement & benefits
We always endeavour to recruit and retain the best staff around. To do so we offer competitive remuneration packages, ongoing training and development opportunities and a wide variety of interesting and challenging work. Additionally, we also offer the following incentives:
- 20 days holiday, rising 1 day per year to a max of 23 days, plus bank/public holidays. In addition the office is closed between Christmas and New Year and you are not required to use your holiday entitlement for this period
- 3 holiday buy backs per year after 1 year of service
- Private medical insurance available after 2 years’ service
- Life Assurance – 2 x salary based on annual salary – eligibility commences when you join the company
- Active social committee, firm pays for trips to e.g. Quiz Night, Escape Rooms, Junkyard Golf, Christmas party, Summer Barbecue etc, as well as weekly Football, Netball and Bootcamp.
- Employee Assistance Programme which offers 24 hour helpline, Legal info and CBT – available immediately
- Free fruit delivered twice a week
For full details and to apply, please visit – www.expresssolicitors.co.uk/careers
To apply for this job please visit www.grassroots-recruitment.online.