It’s the people at Shakespeare Martineau that make us so special. By understanding what our people want, giving them the support they need, recognising everyone’s contribution and realising the unique power of teams, together we win. As a firm we are focused on proactively building and developing diverse teams, bringing different backgrounds, personalities and perspectives together. We play to our strengths, pushing ourselves to be consistently better than yesterday and deliver amazing solutions for our clients. We empower our teams with a high degree of individual responsibility; we self-manage and encourage everyone to be responsible for their own learning, knowing it makes us even better at what we do!

We believe in trusting our people to make the right decisions for themselves, from when and where you work, to how you dress; we focus on outputs.

Want to find more about our amazing benefits?

Job Purpose/Summary:

To provide support to fee earners in delivering a full range of legal services, including but not limited to sales and purchases, re-mortgages and transfers of ownership. The Legal Assistant will work closely with Fee Earners in the day to day running of matters effectively and efficiently, improving client service and compliance where possible.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Providing timely and effective support to requests for assistance from fee earners and members of the team
• Dealing with initial enquiries from potential clients by obtaining all necessary information and providing a detailed breakdown of anticipated costs and disbursements
• Producing accurate correspondence and documentation including but not limited to client engagement letters, client engagement packs, client information forms, cost estimates, terms and conditions of business; CQS letters, contract packs, drafting and exchanging of contracts.
• Attending to clients in person and on the phone providing updates, taking messages and assisting where appropriate
• Using a case management system to process and progress files
• Managing file opening, closure and archiving
• Managing diaries for the team, planning and organising meetings and making travel arrangements
• Organising and maintaining departmental filing systems and document storage
• Audio dictation as required and familiarity with Big Hand for provision of support service to fee earners
• Photocopying, scanning, faxing, printing, filing and other general administrative tasks
• Assisting with accounting and billing
• Any other duties as reasonably required including attending at offices other than their usual place of work from time to time if necessary
• Working in accordance with the SHMA Culture code
• Ensure adherence to all compliance standards

Skills/Experience:

• Previous experience working in a legal assistant role to include an understanding of legal terminology, critical thinking skills and attention to detail
• Efficient and accurate transcription of audio dictation skills
• Computer literacy, Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook)
• Excellent oral and written communications skills Excellent organisational skills, flexibility and the ability to handle multiple priorities simultaneously

Formal Education/Qualifications:

• A minimum grade C pass at GCSE (or equivalent) in English Language and Mathematics

Key competencies:

• Work well in a team and develop good working relationships with colleagues and others
• Confident interpersonal skills with the ability to liaise openly and clearly with colleagues and clients
• Ability to produce a high standard of work, often to tight deadlines, whilst maintaining accuracy and good attention to detail
• Ability to prioritise workload
• Ability to maintain confidentiality

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. This role will be predominantly home based with travel as required into Leicester's hub.

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.