Paralegal London, England
Job description
Summary
Grade:3B
Contract Type: Fixed Term Contract 12 months
Location: Finsbury Dials
Reporting to: Senior Legal Counsel
Division: Inquiry Legal Team
The Purpose of the Role
Reporting into one of the Senior Legal Counsels within the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry Legal Team (“Inquiry Team”), the purpose of this role is to provide effective support to the Inquiry Team but also to lead on tasks which can be handled independently.
The successful candidate will provide legal support which straddles the breadth of the Inquiry’s work, with tasks including but not limited to document discovery and disclosure, commercial sensitivity and POD reviews, preparatory work for hearings, and other associated legal issues as they arise.
Principal Accountabilities
- Providing administrative and project support to the Inquiry Team.
- Undertaking legal research and drafting advisory notes.• Supporting lawyers in the Inquiry Team with all aspects of the necessary phase preparatory work, including:
- Internal Post Office fact-finding
- The production of factual narratives.
- Supporting current employees identified as potential or actual witnesses.
- Reviewing other Core Participants disclosure and witness statements released by the Inquiry.
- Supporting with analysis and response to the oral evidence of other CPs’ witnesses / Inquiry’s expert(s).
- Preparing slides/updates/papers for governance purposes.
- Managing confidentiality undertakings.
- Supporting with POD commercial sensitivity review requests.
- Supporting with responses to Rule 9 requests for disclosure.
Qualifications, Experience & Skills
- A minimum of 18 months experience working in the legal sector, as a legal assistant, executive or paralegal.
- A related degree, in addition to good GCSE and A-Level grades. A Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) or completing the Legal Practice Course (LPC) are desirable but not necessarily required depending upon experience.
- Knowledge of Microsoft Office software including Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint.
- Excellent organisation, diary management and prioritisation skills.
- Excellent written and oral communication skills.
- Excellent people and stakeholder management skills.
The following skills / traits are also desirable
- Personable and confident but also resilient and able to deal with challenges from senior stakeholders within the business.
- Delivery focused and proactive, able to work autonomously and manage multiple instructions and responsibilities.
- Strong interpersonal / stakeholder management and relationship building skills.
- Always being accessible and helpful with an ability to relay complicated pieces of information in an easy to understand manner.
- Comfortable working with technology with a keen enthusiasm for learning new systems
About Post Office
The Post Office has thrived at the heart of high streets and local communities across the UK for over 370 years. As one of the country’s most trusted brands, we take our commitment to providing essential services to customers across the UK very seriously. We’re the UK’s largest retail network, as well as the largest financial services provider in the UK, with over 11,600 branches nationwide – more than all of the UK’s banks and building societies put together.
We know that the best way to provide a great service for customers is to evolve our business and adapt to their changing needs. That’s why we have a range of over 170 products and services, from personal financial services like banking, insurance, payments and travel money, to telecoms and, of course, mails. And we’re improving our online and in store experience for customers. We know that our customers never stop changing, so neither will we. We're here, in person, for the people who rely on us.
Our Ways of Working underpin everything we do, they are the “How” of our business strategy. They differentiate our business and aim to inspire great behaviours and align our colleagues around specific actions in order to be the organisation we want to be, and achieve our business goals.
By living the Ways of Working each day, you will help make that vision a reality and enable our cultural transformation. In short: Working in partnership, as one team, we deliver amazing results!
The Post Office embraces diversity and inclusion in the workplace and actively promote working without discrimination. We are also a Disability Confident Employer and are committed to interviewing disabled people who meet our minimum criteria for the job.
