Job description
Legal Assistant
Meet the team
Our Litigation Services & Dispute Resolution group 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’ corporate requirements. We work cross-functionally as a team and across the entire firm, drawing on relevant expertise to deliver services.
These roles are based within the Managed Legal Services (MLS) Team in Birmingham. You will be working across a variety of areas of Law, including Clinical Negligence, Personal Injury, Abuse, Costs, Litigation, Insolvency, Family, Corporate & Commercial, Agriculture, ULR, Debt, Banking, Risk and Finance, Property teams. Supporting with both fee-earning and non-fee earning tasks, you’ll be gathering great exposure to the wider business
The opportunity
- Are you enthusiastic, keen to learn and develop your skills?
- Are you a team player with a great attitude?
- Do you have strong communication, organisational and customer service skills?
- Are you interested in developing a career within the legal industry and just need the chance to shine? With recent promotions within the team, you too have plenty of opportunities to kickstart your legal career and progress into a paralegal role in the future.
Our Managed Legal Services have entry-level roles available for Legal Assistants to join our Managed Legal Services team, focused on delivering an excellent service to our clients.
All you need are the traits described above plus genuine enthusiasm to learn and we can show you the rest!
Your key duties will be:
- opening new claims / cases on our case management systems
- running searches to identify third party / debtors names and addresses
- generating letters of claim
- drafting correspondence and documents
- dealing with correspondence via letter / email / telephone
- processing incoming / outgoing post and court documents
- updating data on Excel spreadsheets
What you'll need:
- competency with IT systems to include Microsoft Word and Excel
- previous experience within an administrative capacity is desirable but not essential
- 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
- enthusiasm willing to go 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, a strong team player, and be proactive in taking ownership of your work
No legal experience is necessary for this position, as training will be provided. Applications are welcomed from candidates with non-legal backgrounds, candidates returning to work from career breaks, or those looking to change industry sector.
Hours:
This is a full time opportunity, working 37 hours per week. The standard working hours are:
9:00 - 5:30pm - Monday to Thursday
9:00 - 5:00pm - Friday
We can offer you:
- A competitive salary with great benefits including private medical, 27 days holiday plus bank holidays and a bonus day off for your birthday
- A culture of trust, empowerment and autonomy over your work
- Part of a vibrant, forward- thinking team with the support of friendly, approachable partners who encourage and support your career development
- Hybrid working from our Birmingham hub
We embrace agile working and offer a blended approach to where and how we work.
We appreciate that people have different needs and preferences and we’re keen to be flexible, after all, we value what you do, not where you do it.
We have hubs in Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Leicester, London, Lincoln, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Solihull, Stratford-upon-Avon and Sheffield.
Please be aware, for some vacancies, where we receive high numbers of applications we may need to bring the close date forward.
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.