Legal PA/Secretary

Legal PA/Secretary to Partner – Head of Family and Childcare Location: Canterbury Office Working Hours: Full-time Contract: Permanent The Legal PA/Secretary role: An experienced and highly organised Legal PA/Secretary to support the Head of the Family and Childcare Department in our busy Canterbury office. Expectations of the Legal PA/Secretary: · Have a few years' experience in a legal secretarial or PA role, preferably within a family or childcare law environment. · Be highly organised, with the ability to prioritise multiple tasks and remain calm under pressure. · Possess fast, accurate audio typing skills and experience managing busy professional diaries. · Be confident using Microsoft Office applications, including Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. · Communicate clearly and professionally, both in writing and verbally. · Demonstrate a high level of attention to detail and accuracy in all work. · Be professional, articulate, and able to build and maintain strong working relationships with colleagues, clients, and external contacts. · Show a positive, can-do attitude and willingness to take initiative, even with tasks outside your usual remit. · Be discreet, tactful, and trusted to handle sensitive and confidential information appropriately. · Demonstrate enthusiasm for supporting others and being part of a high-performing team. Key Responsibilities of the Legal PA/Secretary The successful candidate will: · Provide comprehensive PA and secretarial support to the Partner heading the Family and Childcare team. · Provide support in accordance with the requirements of the Partner and following the caseworker file management document annexed hereto. · Proactively manage and maintain the Partner’s diary, schedule appointments and coordinate meetings. · Accurately type legal documentation and correspondence from audio dictation. · Liaise with clients, Counsel, and other professionals with professionalism and tact building strong working relationships with clients and internal contacts. · Handle telephone calls, emails and correspondence on behalf of the Partner. · Assist with file management and the organisation of legal documents, court bundles and case materials. · Liaising with other members of the team and delegating tasks as necessary. · Provide general administrative support, including booking travel and managing expenses as required. · Proactively manage and maintain diary planning and coordination for allocated fee earner, making appointments and co-ordinating internal and external client meetings, identifying, and resolving potential challenges and clashes. Ensure arrangements are made for equipment, venue and resources and that fee earners have all necessary paperwork. · Dealing professionally and promptly with client (internal and external) telephone calls and communications, including calls diverted to the team. · Monitoring fee earners' mailbox, responding to emails as necessary and prioritising correspondence to enable fee earners to focus on urgent matters. · Using initiative to route emails to the appropriate individuals for swift response and action; wherever possible, responding to and filing emails on behalf of partners and fee earners to reduce volume. · Providing secretarial assistance, which includes audio typing, copy typing, formatting documents, creating correspondence and ensuring requirements and timescales are clearly set out. · Organising client documents (delegating scanning, formatting, photocopying, and collating of information where necessary) for client meetings or hearings and carrying out research as required. · Working closely within the team to provide general support. · Pro-active and flexible attitude for any other ad-hoc tasks