Job Description

We are looking for an experienced Senior Personal Assistant to join our Real Estate Group for secretarial and administrative support on a 12 month fixed term contract in our Birmingham office.

About the role

Providing fee earners with the administrative support needed to provide seamless legal services to clients. Be proactively involved in all aspects of the management and execution of their fee earners’ day-to-day workload by providing exceptional and proactive administrative support. Act as workflow manager for other support services including delegating and supervising the completion of document production, file management and copying/scanning work. Take an active interest in and obtain a thorough understanding of all aspects of client requirements to provide exceptional service levels to fee earners and clients.

Some of your day to day responsibilities within the team will be:

• Manage diaries, ensuring they are up to date and reminding fee earners of meetings on a daily basis. Ensure critical date diaries are up to date and circulate to team.
• Arrange meetings, book conference rooms, refreshments, check rooms prior to meetings and liaise with other attendees, both internal and external.
• Arrange photocopying, printing, organising couriers, sending out of letters, etc.
• Arrange for files to be opened and closed, supervise general filing, e-filing, scanning requirements and record keeping.
• Take internal and external telephone queries, responding as appropriate and/or ensuring that all messages are passed on in a timely manner. Ensure that all client-related correspondence is passed on to the appropriate fee earner and follow up to ensure that matters are dealt with proactively if the relevant person is out of the office.
• Coordinate the billing process and assist fee earners in the billing and credit control process by liaising with the fee earner and accounts and to produce financial/time reports through the system. Be aware of any service level agreements or arrangements with clients requiring bespoke billing information.

About you:

• Previous experience of working within a Personal Assistant role or similar is required (12 months +)
• Advanced knowledge of Microsoft Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, research tools and other systems implemented by the firm.
• Excellent telephone manner. Confidence to deal with routine client queries and take the necessary action in the absence of fee earners.
• Excellent communication, organisational and team skills.
• Excellent attention to detail.
• Flexible, proactive and dependable with a results-orientated approach.
• Able to remain calm under pressure, work to tight deadlines and prioritise workload.
• Confident in taking the initiative.

What We Can Offer You:

The opportunity to work for a firm which has been recognised as one of the best places to work in the UK and has been ranked by Great Place to Work® for 26 consecutive years.

Excellent benefits, including:

• A hybrid approach to office and remote working.
• 25 days annual leave, with the option to buy up to a week's extra annual leave
• Private medical insurance, and the option to add family members
• A generous pension allowance
• Life assurance covering four times your annual salary
• Maternity, paternity and adoption leave schemes
• A range of health and wellbeing programmes
• State of the art offices, in the heart of Birmingham City Centre, with an onsite restaurant
• Opportunities to flourish in your role through training and personal development

Many of our people work flexibly in some way. If you would like to explore your own flexible working arrangements with us, we are happy to discuss this during the recruitment process.

Equal Opportunities:

Gowling WLG is committed both to promoting equality and diversity in the firm and to Equal Opportunities in employment. The firm believes in equality of opportunity regardless of race or racial group (including colour, nationality, ethnicity, national origins), religion or belief, age, disability, sexual orientation, sex, gender re-assignment and gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy, maternity and paternity. This also includes any incidents of perceptive or associative discrimination and harassment.

At Gowling WLG we seek to attract and retain talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures, to create an exciting and rewarding place to work. Our aim is to fulfil everyone's potential and together to achieve personal and business goals.

Any offers we make will be conditional subject to clearance by the SRA, evidence of eligibility to work in the UK and DBS clearance.

If you have any queries in relation to this position or would like to see a full job description, please contact Meg Astley at meg.astley@gowlingwlg.com

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