PA – Funds Team

An exciting role has arisen within a Top City Law firm for a PA to join the leading international funds practice. You will be expected to provide high quality, comprehensive personal assistant/secretarial support to lawyers in the department. Key Responsibilities ·        Extensive and proactive diary management. Gaining an understanding of the week from the perspective of the lawyers – 'horizon scanning' to pre-empt conflicts and anticipate needs. ·        Work to ensure unique and individual support needs are understood for each lawyer. ·        Ensure regular communication is made to convey and share any workload pressures with other PAs. ·        Pre-empt needs for enhanced or specific support at times when individuals might be under additional pressure.  ·        Field and screen communications (email), ensuring exceptional client service is considered at all times. ·        Act as a 'gatekeeper' for work whilst identifying where to delegate tasks that should be sent to the Document Production ('DP') team or the Central Admin Team Team Administrators. ·        Ensure 'quality control' forms part of regular workflow patterns, whereby any work that is delegated to another team is thoroughly checked before it is returned. ·        Complete appropriate/necessary DP tasks to the highest standards and ensuring house style requirements are met. ·        Prepare PowerPoint presentations with minimal input, delivering slides that are clear, in line with branding. ·        Take the initiative of overseeing ad-hoc administrative projects for the lawyers, for example, archiving, confidential shredding, photocopying, organising filing systems. ·        Liaise with relevant parties to arrange meetings; booking internal rooms; ensuring the appropriate room setups are in place; and that refreshments are booked and confirmed. ·        Liaise with and co-ordinate meeting attendees, both internal and external, ensuring all parties have the relevant information ahead of time. ·        Proactively prepare and collate papers ahead of meetings. ·        Co-ordinate travel arrangements ensuring efficient use of time and expenditure including booking taxis and accommodation, completing visa applications, arranging currency, creating itineraries, and compiling expense forms as appropriate. ·        Support lawyers in marketing activities including involvement in the preparation of pitch documents and presentations. ·        Use of effective systems to ensure that both urgent and non-urgent tasks are progressed and delivered within the required timescales. ·        Assist other members of the department/Firm as required; and ·        Develop a general awareness of business issues and challenges within which the lawyers operate to instill trust and confidence in the PA team. Client Relations ·        Be client focused and understand the expectations of internal and external clients. ·        Where necessary, pass on full and accurate messages in a timely manner and take appropriate action to ensure the needs of both internal and external clients are met. ·        Act in a professional and courteous manner when dealing with clients (including internal clients), potential clients and third parties. ·        Assist in arranging internal and external events. ·        Capture and manage contact and client relationship data in the Firm’s CRM system (InterAction), maintaining any existing information. ·        Interrogate and report on data in the CRM system. ·        Become an active part in the care of clients and look for opportunities to build relationships with client contacts and PAs where appropriate; and ·        Deal with basic client queries and general administration. Administration ·        Proactively deal with incoming and outgoing mail. ·        Action emails and manage inbox as required by the Partner and forward/action as necessary. ·        Establish and maintain effective and accurate filing systems (electronic); ·        Be capable of operating all the functions of the photocopiers and scanners including clearing jams, replenishing paper and replacing toner. ·        Managing lawyer expenses; and ·        General ad-hoc administration duties Communication ·        Demonstrate rapport, empathy, and professionalism when communicating and use these skills to build and maintain collaborative working relationships with all colleagues, clients and stakeholders of the Firm; ·        Utilise your internal and external networks to help you to solve problems and devise effective solutions; ·        Ensure that all client related correspondence is passed on to an appropriate lawyer and actioned as necessary; ·        Liaise with the business support departments on behalf of the lawyers as required; ·        Liaise with the department’s Team Leader/PA Manager over any planned absences, arranging cover as necessary and communicating this to the relevant lawyers; and ·        Communicate and work as a team to cover busy periods and absence. Documents ·        Oversee all document production work, either through delegation and quality control, or through completing a task that falls within the PA remit of responsibility; and ·        Provide support with marketing and pitch documents.  Billing and File Opening ·        Assist lawyers with time recording where possible, entering absences onto Intapp Time; ·        Assist lawyers with billing and credit control by liaising with Central Finance and preparing bill narratives and draft cost details; ·        Provide assistance with file opening and conflict checks; and ·        Request bank transfers, pay money in/out, as appropriate. Education/Qualifications ·        Minimum 5 GCSEs/O'Levels or equivalent at grade A-C including English and Maths. ·        Secretarial qualification and/or MOS certification (desirable).