Legal PA

Watson Farley & Williams is an international law firm advising on complex disputes and transactions through local knowledge and an integrated international network.  We have a strong sector focus, combining our technical excellence with deep industry knowledge across Energy, Transport and associated Infrastructure.

The firm has achieved rapid expansion and year-on-year growth owed almost entirely to a focused strategy, strong leadership and the quality of its people.  The next stage in the firm’s growth plan is to achieve full-service strength within core sectors across the global platform.

We strive for excellence in all that we do and view investment in our people as key to achieving our business goals and values, which rest on developing deep and long-lasting relationships externally and internally through respect, sharing, communication and integrity.

Our global practice is integrated across our offices in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and North America delivering consistently high levels of service across borders and locally through a deep understanding of local business customs and culture.

We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace to attract and retain the most talented people from all backgrounds and cultures.  We believe in celebrating difference and that people from any background can rise to the top, ensuring opportunities to develop and progress are available for all.

The Legal PA provides skilled administrative and secretarial support to an assigned group of fee earners in the Corporate team including two Partners, a Senior Associate, three Associates, one Knowledge Counsel and a Trainee. The Legal PA works as part of a team, proactively assisting the group, meeting deadlines, and sharing workloads to maximise the effectiveness of the lawyers’ practices and time.

Essential for success is an enthusiastic approach with excellent administrative and organisational skills. Flexibility, patience, and the ability to spin lots of plates at the same time are also key requirements. In return for your commitment, we will offer a friendly and supportive environment where you will be valued and encouraged.

Including but not limited to:-

• Proactively manage and maintain diary planning and coordination for allocated fee earners, 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.
• Travel management, booking transport, hotels, client meetings and producing detailed itineraries.
• Coordinating business development and client liaison initiatives for fee earners, including updating database information, and assisting with marketing initiatives and events (including occasional support at event e.g. registration desk).
• Proactively dealing with all aspects of claiming expenses, including InterAction entries.
• Liaising with the Firm's clients in a confident and professional manner, building strong working relationships with clients and internal contacts. 
• Dealing professionally and promptly with client (internal and external) telephone calls and communications, including calls diverted to the team.
• Creation, uploading and general maintenance of client sites and extranets.
• Monitoring fee earners' mailbox when they are out of the office or attending a long meeting, 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 in Filesite on behalf of partners and fee earners to reduce volume.
• Preparing bills, including resolving queries and dealing with outstanding fees, maintaining accurate billing/contact details, preparation of narratives and drafting first bills with covering correspondence for partner approval. Assisting fee earners by liaising with the billing team and following up with debt recovery as requested.
• Proactively ensuring Carpe Diem is updated for all allocated fee earners, particularly for holiday or sickness absence. Informing team co-ordinator if fee earner is working from home or absent due to holiday or sickness.
• Providing secretarial assistance to assigned fee-earners, which includes audio typing, copy typing, formatting documents, creating correspondence, pitches, and presentations. Delegating complex and lengthy documents to the Document Production Team, ensuring requirements and timescales are clearly set out. 
• Coordinating the opening of new client matters and assisting with Anti-Money Laundering processes. Undertaking as much research as possible before passing over to the Partner for approval.
• Organising client documents (delegating scanning, formatting, photocopying, and collating of information where necessary) for client meetings or hearings and carrying out research as required.
• Management and delegation of client filing and regular updating of client relationship management systems (Interaction), archiving historic files or closed matters.  
• Working with a LPA Buddy or within the LPA team to provide assistance to lawyers in the group, prioritising own workload as required.
• Working closely within the team to provide general support to the Group across rotas or core hours, including assisting during periods of high demand or helping other practice areas when required.
• Liaising with team, stakeholders and clients in a professional and courteous manner, building and maintaining effective working relationships.
• Attending and participating in LPA team meetings.
• Pro-active and flexible attitude for any other ad-hoc tasks.

• A few years' experience in a legal secretarial role.
• Excellent knowledge of Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.
• Clear and professional in both written and verbal communication.
• Highly organised, skilled in prioritising multiple tasks and able to remain calm under pressure.
• Accurate, with high level of attention to detail.
• Professional and articulate: able to build positive relationships with stakeholders.
• Enthusiastic, can-do, positive approach to tasks and situations, as well as requests for action outside normal scope of duties.
• Takes ownership, maintains tact and diplomacy, is confidential and inspires trust.

We offer a competitive benefits and wellbeing package for all employees.

The Firm promotes a culture of agility and flexibility and is fully supportive of flexible working arrangements where these can be accommodated.

Respect for different backgrounds and perspectives is at the heart of our firm’s core values and we recognise the importance of fostering an inclusive environment that allows everyone to reach their full potential. This is a key feature of our Global Code of Conduct, which places diversity and inclusion at the centre of our firm’s ways of working.

We believe that exceptional client service can only be delivered by exceptional people. For this reason, we aim to attract, retain and develop the best talent from a wide range of backgrounds. All decisions relating to employment will be objective and based on merit and ability.

We are committed to ensuring that our recruitment processes are as inclusive and barrier-free as possible. This includes making adjustments for candidates with a disability or long-term health condition.  If you require adjustments to be made at any stage of the recruitment process, we’d encourage you to get in touch with a member of our team who would be happy to discuss options with you.