Legal PA - IP Litigation

Owen Reed are recruiting for a Legal PA to join a top London law firm.  The Legal PA will work within the Intellectual Property team.

The Legal PA will provide proactive and professional PA/administrative support at Partner level and to several fee earners within the Intellectual Property team. 

Responsibilities of the Legal PA:
•Liaising regularly (at least on a weekly basis) with lawyers to identify lawyers' work commitments and prioritising your workload accordingly
•Diary management for the senior lawyers including arranging meetings and appointments for lawyers, both internally and externally, ensuring the Outlook diary is up to date and holds all the necessary information in relation to the appointment including taking responsibility for booking travel, meeting rooms and arranging for necessary equipment and refreshments.
•Proactive advance monitoring of lawyers' diaries, reminding lawyers of diary commitments and taking responsibility for ensuring that lawyers have all supporting paperwork and necessary information for each meeting or appointment
•Liaising with the travel company to make travel and accommodation arrangements (UK and international), keeping lawyers advised of any changes in scheduling and ensuring they have an accurate and up to date itinerary and all the relevant travel details are in their Outlook calendar
•Liaising with support departments to resolve problems on lawyers' behalf and taking ownership of the issue, following up where appropriate
•Taking ownership of answering lawyers' telephone calls when they are unavailable, taking accurate messages and passing them on promptly, trying to assist and answer any non-legal queries if possible and ensuring the caller receives a satisfactory response
•Screening, prioritising and dealing with lawyers' incoming e-mails, post and voicemail when lawyers are out of the office, acknowledging receipt and responding where able and appropriate
•Management and co-ordination of lawyers' e-mails, including electronic filing and printing
•Preparing presentation slides and materials for internal/external meetings and seminars
•Drafting short letters, memos or notes (non legal content) in a literate and professional manner
•Managing production of documents (produced in-house and externally), co-ordinating changes made including taking responsibility for the consistency of those documents (eg, formatting, numbering, deltaview etc).
•Managing audio typing, drafting correspondence, producing documents/letters/e-mails and memos.
•Opening client files, including completing conflict searches and money laundering checks in conjunction with lawyers, preparation of client engagement letters, collating all the relevant information required and maintaining client files on a day to day basis, including filing where required.
•Organising client events/seminars in conjunction with business development including logging responses into Interaction and attending events to meet and greet clients where necessary
•Undertaking research on clients, potential clients and new business initiatives or opportunities, including putting together briefing packs as and when required
•Collating information for preparation of regular client updates or reports as and when required, including subscribing to relevant alerts in Interaction and maintenance of general client information
•Assisting lawyers with follow-ups to business development meetings, for example thank you letters, diarising reminders or arranging follow-up meetings
•Collating information for preparation of bids, tenders, proposal documents, team sheets and client briefing documents and preparing the first draft of documentation where appropriate, including keeping lawyers' CVs up to date
•Maintaining up to date contact details in Interaction for all lawyers' contacts, prompting lawyers to complete an Interaction report following meetings or completing the report on their behalf
•Knowledge of key business development materials for the practice area
•Attending internal client or project meetings to take notes and assisting in action points if required
•Preparation and submission of lawyers' expenses, including chasing lawyers for receipts and mileage information following meetings and business trips and following up on authorisations
•Taking responsibility for producing contact sheets or parties lists for each file, keeping these up to date and updating the relevant lawyer's Outlook address book
•Assisting lawyers with the billing process, agreeing in advance dates for billing, requesting pre-bills, drafting narratives and covering letters and putting paperwork in front of lawyer for sign off