We have an excellent opportunity for a PA to join our
Property Litigation team. This is a permanent position based in our Bristol
office, offering hybrid working arrangements.
This is a very busy and demanding role which requires a PA
to primarily support a team of lawyers in the Property Disputes team but also
providing support to the London team remotely where needed. The role requires a highly organised and
proactive individual who enjoys a variety of work, extensive diary management,
client interaction and working for different people in a, at times, pressurised
environment.
The Property Disputes team handles a wide variety of
instructions for a diverse client base encompassing institutional investors,
funds, developers, landlords, occupiers, corporate end-users, public sector
bodies and energy, infrastructure and technology businesses.
Key Responsibilities
The main purpose of this role is to provide professional,
effective and proactive PA support to the lawyers. More specifically you will:
- Have weekly 1:1 meetings with fee earners to understand
their proactive work needs for the week, record and follow up on actions
including diary management, travel, meeting booking, expenses and billing.
- Take ownership of the lawyer's diary management including
anticipating and avoiding potential diary clashes, organising meetings with
clients/their PAs, arranging travel and generally using initiative to plan and
schedule meetings and calls and act as gatekeeper for meeting invites and
requests from across the business.
- Proactively take responsibility for travel arrangements
(including international travel), conference and meeting bookings and ensuring
any travel itineraries are prepared in advance and any agendas required for
meetings.
- Monitor and assist with management of mailboxes including
acting as gatekeeper to field messages and calls in a timely and professional
manner.
- Deal with enquiries from clients, colleagues and third
parties and provide effective transfer of information.
- Collate and process expenses including proactive management
in a timely manner.
- Play an active role in managing the billing process by
working closely with the finance team including accessing relevant reports,
transferring time, ensuring correct rates, initial mark up on billing guides
and drafting emails for invoices to be sent to the client.
- Play a key role in the managing of key client accounts and
the financial management of those accounts i.e. monthly cost updates, updating
client documents and requesting purchase order numbers.
- Supporting the team with managing and developing client
relationships (and building your own relationships with client teams and
contacts).
- Attend client meetings (may require note taking).
- Document comparisons and electronic filing.
- Develop and maintain positive internal and external client
and PA relationships.
- Proactively identify opportunities, actively contribute and
be involved with ad-hoc projects as given by the team (and across OC).
- Work with the PA team to continuously develop effective ways
of working within the cross-office team.
- Provide ad hoc support for the PA team (covering for other
PA absences)
- Assist with ad hoc IT queries and liaising with IT team to
resolve these queries, particularly for new joiners.
Key Skills:
The position requires someone who is able to use their own
initiative, has first class organisational skills and is a team player. Flexibility and proactivity are essential
personal attributes. You will also be able to demonstrate skills that support
the following:
- Experience as a PA from a legal or professional services
background
- Excellent organisational skills and the ability to
prioritise work
- The ability to work under pressure and to tight deadlines
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Experience of billing processes, month end billing cycles,
running reports, time entries and WIP reviews
- The ability to work with confidentiality, discretion and
diplomacy
- Strong attention to detail
- Good IT skills (Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook)
- The ability to prepare financial reports for clients
- The ability to create, amend and reformat large documents
Salary and benefits
We offer competitive salaries and generous benefits. We value the health and wellbeing of our people and our wide range of initiatives and benefits support this.
Our recruitment process
Please note that although we include closing dates for our roles as a guide, we review and progress applications on a rolling basis. At Osborne Clarke we do not make any recruitment decisions using automated decision-making.
We are committed to providing an environment where you can perform to the best of your abilities at every stage of your recruitment experience and beyond. If you require any adjustments to be made during the application stage, interview process, or when working with us, please let us know in confidence.