The pace of change in the business world has never been greater. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, new thinking, technology and business models have shaken up the old and made possible ideas that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. The Innovation Department brings together expertise from across the Firm, allowing a new level of collaboration and a focus on meeting the needs of clients in diverse and dynamic sectors. Our legal knowledge is underpinned by the latest technology to create better insights, better levels of customer service and increased efficiency for our clients. The practices within the Innovation Department include those that are well established, recognised as being at the top of their game by the legal industry, and those that we have created in recent years as clients have come to us with new problems to solve and value models to create. We offer a relentless curiosity for our clients' businesses and sectors, and a passion for finding new ways to help them meet their goals. We have an innate understanding of what drives those creating new ideas, because that's what we are doing within our own business every day.

The Role

The Practice Assistant is primarily a Partner focussed role, based within a practice area in one of the Firm's fee-earning departments. The Practice Assistant will work with specified Partners and/or other senior fee earners to provide proactive, timely and high quality administrative/co-ordination support.

The Practice Assistant will need to be a self-motivated organised individual, who will be able to manage a busy workload and take responsibility for following tasks through to completion.

Duties and Responsibilities

Fee Earner Support

• Acting as a first point of contact on behalf of the fee-earners, fielding calls, emails, correspondence and meeting requests (both internally and from clients), responding on behalf of the fee-earner, if appropriate.
• Full proactive and advanced calendar management for assigned fee-earners, including scheduling calls/meetings, looking ahead and following up as needed to ensure best use is made of fee-earners time.
• Ensuring the fee-earners are fully prepared for all client meetings by collating required information (and input from others), preparing background information and notes as needed, supporting the follow-through of action points etc.
• Supporting Fee Earners with expense claims.

Matter Lifecycle

• Supporting fee-earners in the smooth running of the client/matter lifecycle, following documented procedures, and working closely with internal client on-boarding and compliance specialists to ensure all required information/documentation is obtained, issued and correctly stored on the Firm's systems. This will involve pro-actively chasing fee-earners and their clients for any missing information as well as full management of client files etc.
• Developing a strong working knowledge of the Firm's billing systems, including processes, IT systems and specialist support available internally, to support the fee-earners in being able to prepare and issue timely and accurate bills to clients.
• Supporting fee-earners with monitoring and addressing unpaid bills, liaising with Credit Control as required.
• To co-ordinate the WIP lists and billing on behalf of Partners, including liaison with billing team. Pro-active monitoring of time and bills against the estimate.
• Supporting the fee-earning staff to ensure compliance with the Firm's documented Compliance policy and guidelines, particularly around subsidiaries, new matters, conflict checks, searches etc.
• Ensuring all documents are maintained and filed in line with the Firm's electronic and hard copy filing protocols.

Business Development

• Co-ordinating smaller events, and to help prepare content and presentations to the client. Where applicable, to manage Client Handbook and to keep central BD status report updated monthly.
• Working with the client lead Partner and BD team to plan and deliver the Client Care programme, including meetings, mailings and events and to co-ordinate and share client related news searches.
• Working with the client lead Partner and BD team to plan and deliver the Client Care programme, including meetings, mailings and events and to co-ordinate and share client related news searches.
• Organising business breakfasts, dinners or smaller events and assisting fee-earners with expenses.
• Researching company/client information and biographies.
• Logging referrals and contacts to the CRM system (InterAction) and management of CRM lists.

Travel

• Full management of travel for assigned fee-earners, ensuring business travel is booked via the Firm's in-house provider. This will include both routine and more complex travel arrangements, ensuring that fee-earners are provided with full itineraries, supporting materials and that business expenses are captured, approved and processed for payment in line with policy.

General

• Collaborating with administrative assistants to ensure that they provide support with filing and archiving, scanning, photocopying, updating contacts on Interaction and arranging couriers etc.
• Working closely with internal document/presentation experts for more specialist tasks, such as the preparation of documents, pitch/presentation materials etc.
• Liaising with other internal departments to obtain specialist input as needed, taking ownership of issues and following up where appropriate.
• When required stepping up to cover the Division Assistant or other Practice Assistants.

Skills/Experience

• Previous experience gained in an administrative role supporting a team in a similar professional services environment (ideally legal).
• Strong time management skills; will need to juggle a number of tasks at any given time, plan ahead, and have the ability to respond positively and willingly to re-prioritise and adapt to changes in requirements.
• Previous experience managing calendars for multiple individuals, with the ability to apply judgement and common sense to ensure the best use of people's time, and that any potential diary clashes are pro-actively identified and addressed.
• Excellent attention to detail, with the ability to deliver work to a consistently high standard of precision (even under pressure) in an environment where accuracy is prized.
• Organised and methodical, and able to operate effectively within structured work processes, in particular, with compliance/quality control frameworks.
• Well-developed interpersonal skills, with the ability to work effectively with a range of people and working styles.
• A strong team player, willing to take on work for additional fee-earners and/or help with other tasks as needed in order to meet the needs of the business.
• Able to communicate effectively, with warmth and professionalism, to clients and colleagues both orally and in writing, including drafting business emails/correspondence.
• High levels of discretion, with the ability to deal effectively with sensitive or confidential information.
• Previous experience using bespoke in-house systems (e.g. client contact databases, matter management systems, billing systems etc.)