Job Description
Positive Employment is currently recruiting for a legal Assistant for our client a local government organisation based in Swindon.
The successful post holder will provide professional legal support to the Chief Legal and Monitoring Officer and the wider legal team with minimal supervision. To prioritise and allocate the tasks required from the legal team to meet the timescales to the satisfaction of the client departments and external stakeholders, Solicitors, Court and the community.
This role is a temporary contract initially for 2 months with the possibility to extend. Office attendance as required.
Duties and Responsibilities but not limited to:
* Super user of the IKEN Case Management System including advance knowledge of the search function, creating new case files, adding documents to appropriate files, bundling of Court and other papers and the providing of reports required by the Chief Legal Officer.
* Responsible for the storage, filing and retrieval of all legal documents, maintaining the Agreements system and to set up an electronic filing system to ensure all legal documents are saved electronically and ensure access is available to all relevant individuals within the legal team including the easy retrieval.
* Ensure that sealing of all legal documentation is completed in timely manner, to a high standard and in accordance with the organistion’s constitution.
* Responsible for monitoring of the Legal inboxes in order to determine which team a query relates to and to ensure that all matters are allocated appropriately and files open accordingly.
* Undertake the right to buy processes under the guidance of the Principal Solicitor and to respond to queries in relation to this process including checking of legal title documents to verfiy the organisation's legal title and collating contract documentation including searches, land registry and local landcharge as well as preparing transfer documentation .
* Prepare Court documentation using the Case Management System workflow for the single justice procedure (education prosecutions) for submissions to the Court to enable hearings to be listed/heard.
* Download, collate and record all Land Registry Searches/dealings on an Excel Spreadsheet with costings included for submission to the Accountancy Support Team for payment.
* Responsible for completing IT and Matrix requests for new starters, ordering of equipment, onboarding process and be responsible for sign off locum Solicitors timesheets.
* Create performance management data, including reports on time recording, cases opened/closed and compile legal KPI data for the Chief Legal Officer.
* Support in answering FOI, SAR, Complaints and Members Hotline queries by providing the Practice Manager & Chief Legal Officer data, chronology of cases and information that may support in the respnse.
* General Administrational duties including opening, scanning & distributing post, preparing outgoing post, answering phone calls, creation of spreadsheets & forms, Scanning and converting of documents, raise invoices & pay in cheques to our accounts department.
* Identifying and implementing changes to processes and delivery models to ensure that legal services are provided in a cost effective, efficient and modern manner to agreed timescales in accordance with the Chief Legal Officer’s requirements.
* In collaboration with the Chief Legal Officer and the Practice manager to prepare the legal office manual to include all the legal practices and processes and ensure that it is accessible on sharepoint for all.
* Undertake training with the Legal Childcare Business Support Assistants and support with Childcare Legal administrative tasks, including bundling, when needed.
Personal Requirements:
* Previous experience as a Legal Assistant or Paralegal.
* Previous experience working for a local authority (Desirable).
* Educated to a degree level or equivalent experience.
Working Hours: 37hrs / Monday - Friday
Pay: £25.00 per hr
Please note this role is within the scope of IR35.