Personal Assistant

Salary: £30,000 per annum, plus company benefits

Location: Leeds, LS1 5HN

Contract: Permanent, Full time

Shifts: 37.5 hours per week, Monday – Friday, 9am-5:30pm with 1 hour unpaid break

Work model: Potential for Hybrid working after 3 months (3 days office based, 2 days home based)

Williams Lea seeks an experienced Personal Assistant to join our team!

Williams Lea is the leading global provider of skilled, technology-enabled, business-critical support services, with long-term trusted relationships with blue-chip clients across investment banks, law firms and professional services firms. Williams Lea employees, nearly 7000 people worldwide, who provide efficient business services at client sites in often complex and highly regulated environments, from centralised Williams Lea onshore facilities, and through best cost company offshore locations.

Purpose of Role

This role is to provide enhanced, proactive support to a busy team of sector fee earners enabling them to operate efficiently. The support provided needs to be seamless and of a high standard. The individual is expected to use a high degree of self-management and initiative and can maintain a high level of confidentiality.

The Personal Assistant supports the Leeds office for a number of solicitors of varying levels of need. The lawyers in the office work across several sectors meaning the work is varied. The Personal Assistant will act as workflow coordinator for other support services. This includes delegating and supervising the completion of document production, file management and copying/scanning work which are primarily undertaken by other relevant business support services.

The solicitors are based all over the country in offices such as London, Cambridge, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Bath, which is the main hub for our client. There would be the option of hybrid working after initial training/probation. This will normally be 3 days in the office and 2 days working from home.

Key Responsibilities

In line with policies and procedures, key responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Proactively managing complex diaries for both partners and fee earners
• Answering telephone calls in a timely fashion, taking clear and detailed messages
• Organising internal and external meetings
• Liaising with clients via email, telephone and in person and acting as a point of contact in keeping with the firm’s standards for client care
• Assisting fee earners in the billing and credit control process. Generating accurate billing reports, draft bills, and accompanying letters in a timely manner
• Assisting fee earners with finance tasks, namely requesting cheques, CHAPS/BACS payments, bank transfers and paying in money received, as appropriate
• Ensuring accurate and timely use of client relationship management tool to facilitate matter opening, maintenance, closure and archiving
• Maintaining up to date client records on the firm’s client relationship management tool, including client contact details, client specific requests in relation to billing and bill formats, details of other parties etc in line with the firm’s policy and processes
• Co-ordinating fee earner movements and making travel arrangements
• Managing the client and matter inception process ensuring files are opened in a timely manner in accordance with the firm’s policies
• Managing the process of submitting partner/fee earners expenses in a timely manner
• Co-ordinating the completion of document production (including digital dictations/manuscript amendments), e-filing and file management, photocopying and scanning services, organising couriers, sending out of letters/faxes etc
• Managing the production of official documents including bundles, court papers, and relevant documents along with liaising with the Courts/Tribunals
• Actively participating in all relevant training
• Demonstrating flexibility with working practices/processes in line with the business need, especially in times of pressure/ high workload
• Assisting other members of the department, both proactively and at the request of the team leader and work effectively with other legal and support departments as required
• Any other relevant duties as reasonably requested by the fee earners or your line manager.