Legal Secretary/ Personal Assistant required urgently: APPLY NOW

Title: Legal Secretary/ Personal Assistant

Reporting To: Partners and fee-earners in team

Reporting staff: Nil

Primary Objectives:

To provide secretarial and administrative support at a consistent and high standard to partners, fee-earners, and Business Services staff in the practice group. To meet client requirements and deadlines. To deliver an exceptional client experience.

Location: Johannesburg

Key Internal Relationships: Partners, fee-earners, Business Services staff

Key External Relationships: Clients, service providers

Primary Responsibilities:

Deliver high quality, accurate work whilst managing deadlines, responding to change and the competing priorities of all work.
Co-ordinate and produce accurate compliant documents and correspondence (including draft engagement and billing letters). Meet required deadlines and negotiate alternate timeframes when necessary. Utilise other services as appropriate (e.g. Printroom, Document Production).
Establish effective work practices with partners and fee- earners to manage the matter life cycle from file opening to closure/archival. This includes adhering to the firm’s conflicts process, managing information barriers, contributing to the effective management of electronic and hard copy content and active legal project management.
Implement effective telephone call management and other communication work practices. Ensure callers and other parties receive a consistent, high-quality service and their expectations are managed. Take all steps necessary to ensure that team members are aware of partners, fee-earners and your own movements.
Manage partner and fee-earner internal and external appointments with appropriate meeting lead and travel times, assisting with meeting preparation and the co-ordination of post meeting actions (this includes co-ordinating/printing documentation and organising meeting room logistics as required).
Manage own email and partner and fee-earners’ email as required. This includes timely filing of emails (including hard copy filing where necessary), filtering incoming correspondence, proactively dealing with queries and meeting invites. Deal with hard copy mail/post in the same manner.
Co-ordinate detailed travel arrangements for the assigned partners and fee-earners including appropriate visa documentation and domestic and international itineraries.
Ensure filing is up to date and undertaken regularly. This includes printing documents as required and filing them in the relevant files promptly.
Manage the entry of timesheets promptly with accurate use of phase and tasks codes (if required)
Assist fee-earners with expense claims in a timely manner.
Manage the billing process including the creation of pre-bills, the editing of bills, co-ordinating write-offs and discounts, finalising bills and narratives and posting onto the system as per firm policy and process. Manage alternative pricing arrangements and cross-border invoicing.
Assist partners and fee-earners to meet required WIP, billing, and debtor day’s targets. Generating client matter reports and rectifying errors and omissions. Completing cheque requisitions, [petty cash reimbursement requests and the processes for coding corporate credit card expenditure].
Arrange lunches and dinners and other events as required, including reviewing venues and menu planning, and ensuring costs are maintained against budget.
Assist partners and fee-earners with their BD responsibilities. This includes producing pitches, updating CVs and credentials, producing International BD visit reports, and updating the necessary client information databases in consultation with the relevant BD representative.
Proactively collect client information and update relevant databases, including client specific requirements, in a timely manner (e.g., InterAction) to ensure all data is accurate at all times.
Prepare files for archiving and manage return and retrieval of files following firm guidelines.
Treat your key relationships as ‘internal clients’ and demonstrating diligence, professionalism and a commitment to providing them with an exceptional experience including being a key point of contact for the team.
Take an interest in your own practice area, key matters, issues, and hot topics; so that appropriate priority is given to queries and requests and issues are escalated where necessary.
Adhere to firm, office and practice group policies and procedures, including those that are formal, informal, documented or verbal.
Take all necessary steps to ensure you are aware of correct procedures. Maintaining inquisitive, collaborative, and vigilant work habits, keeping abreast of changes, and developing more efficient work processes. Demonstrate this in your interactions with others.
Demonstrate enthusiasm and proactivity in the workplace, including participating in and contributing to secretarial and practice group meetings, welcoming and settling in new starters, projects, focus groups, pilot groups, team building activities, learning and development sessions and other relevant activities.
Take responsibility for your own learning, undertake recommended training, keep up to date and comply with firm policies, adopt new or improved firm and practice group recommended work practices, and share information with others about better ways of working.

Key Performance Indicators:

Assigned partners and fee-earners are pleased with the level of administrative support they receive and agree that the quality of support you provide [meets expectations].
Documents produced and co-ordinated are accurate, comply with the firm’s standards and guidelines, and are completed within agreed timeframes.
Task based work is consistently completed as requested, within agreed timeframes and is of a high standard.
A reputation within the practice group for being an effective, helpful, and supportive team member.
Colleagues (including all fee-earners, secretaries, and Business Services staff) are confident that they can approach you and will receive a level of assistance that is appropriate in the circumstances.
A reputation amongst Business Services groups for being an effective communicator and for working with them to achieve positive outcomes.
Compliance with the firm’s and practice group’s policies, guidelines, and recommended ways of working.
Assigned partner and fee-earner client contact and activity information is up to date and accurate.
Support provided to partners and fee-earners on matter management activities has assisted to meet client and firm obligations in an effective manner (e.g., assisting in WIP and debt management, client communication).
Partners and fee-earners appointment schedules run smoothly, their travel itineraries support business requirements, preparatory support is provided, and their needs are anticipated and managed whilst out of the office.
You take full ownership and responsibility for any absences from the office (including planned and unexpected absences). This includes leaving work in an appropriate state of order, leaving discoverable and up to date handover information, providing handover and full communication of the absence that is appropriate to the circumstances and in accordance with the process in place for the group.

Qualifications, Skills & Experience:

Typing speed minimum of 55wpm with 98% accuracy.
Intermediate to advanced skill level with the Microsoft suite (Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint)
Excellent written and verbal communication skills with a demonstrated ability to building effective and trusting relationships with people internally and external to the firm.
Proven high level organisational and time management skills with the ability to think ahead, prioritise workload, respond to and manage changing circumstances and work under pressure to meet deadlines.
Strong attention to detail
Good judgement and problem-solving ability
Demonstrated high level experience as a Secretary/ PA working in a professional services environment (legal experience is desired).

Competencies:

Personal Leadership

Takes pride in their work and positively impacts those around them
Inspires confidence by consistently delivering quality work
Maintains composure under pressure by finding ways to manage their reactions to challenging situations
Behaves consistently with the firm’s values and brand and inspires this in others
Connects and Collaborates with People

Takes an active interest in others and gets to know the people they interact with
Treats people with respect and in a fair and consistent way
Adopts a positive communication style, even when challenged by others Contributes to the Success of Others
Maintains an awareness of the firm’s purpose, objectives, and structure
Recognises how their work contributes to and affects the work of others, and prioritises and communicates accordingly
Identifies opportunities to assist others and readily volunteers their help. Contributes to the Success of Others

Enhances the Client Experience

Finds ways to enhance the experience of the firm’s clients through their daily tasks
Shows a willingness to go the extra mile to deliver great service

Achieves Results

Goes above and beyond to contribute to the success of the firm
Pays attention to the quality and accuracy of their work
Suggests new ideas or ways of doing things in a confident, constructive, and sensitive way

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-Indeed