Legal PA/Secretary to Partner – Head of Family and Childcare
Location: Canterbury Office
Working Hours: Full-time
Contract: Permanent
The Legal PA/Secretary role:
An experienced and highly organised Legal PA/Secretary to support the Head of the Family and Childcare Department in our busy Canterbury office.
Expectations of the Legal PA/Secretary:
· Have a few years' experience in a legal secretarial or PA role, preferably within a family or childcare law environment.
· Be highly organised, with the ability to prioritise multiple tasks and remain calm under pressure.
· Possess fast, accurate audio typing skills and experience managing busy professional diaries.
· Be confident using Microsoft Office applications, including Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.
· Communicate clearly and professionally, both in writing and verbally.
· Demonstrate a high level of attention to detail and accuracy in all work.
· Be professional, articulate, and able to build and maintain strong working relationships with colleagues, clients, and external contacts.
· Show a positive, can-do attitude and willingness to take initiative, even with tasks outside your usual remit.
· Be discreet, tactful, and trusted to handle sensitive and confidential information appropriately.
· Demonstrate enthusiasm for supporting others and being part of a high-performing team.
Key Responsibilities of the Legal PA/Secretary
The successful candidate will:
· Provide comprehensive PA and secretarial support to the Partner heading the Family and Childcare team.
· Provide support in accordance with the requirements of the Partner and following the caseworker file management document annexed hereto.
· Proactively manage and maintain the Partner’s diary, schedule appointments and coordinate meetings.
· Accurately type legal documentation and correspondence from audio dictation.
· Liaise with clients, Counsel, and other professionals with professionalism and tact building strong working relationships with clients and internal contacts.
· Handle telephone calls, emails and correspondence on behalf of the Partner.
· Assist with file management and the organisation of legal documents, court bundles and case materials.
· Liaising with other members of the team and delegating tasks as necessary.
· Provide general administrative support, including booking travel and managing expenses as required.
· Proactively manage and maintain diary planning and coordination for allocated fee earner, making appointments and co-ordinating internal and external client meetings, identifying, and resolving potential challenges and clashes. Ensure arrangements are made for equipment, venue and resources and that fee earners have all necessary paperwork.
· Dealing professionally and promptly with client (internal and external) telephone calls and communications, including calls diverted to the team.
· Monitoring fee earners' mailbox, responding to emails as necessary and prioritising correspondence to enable fee earners to focus on urgent matters.
· Using initiative to route emails to the appropriate individuals for swift response and action; wherever possible, responding to and filing emails on behalf of partners and fee earners to reduce volume.
· Providing secretarial assistance, which includes audio typing, copy typing, formatting documents, creating correspondence and ensuring requirements and timescales are clearly set out.
· Organising client documents (delegating scanning, formatting, photocopying, and collating of information where necessary) for client meetings or hearings and carrying out research as required.
· Working closely within the team to provide general support.
· Pro-active and flexible attitude for any other ad-hoc tasks