Litigation Paralegal, Legal Affairs

At American Express, our culture is built on a 175-year history of innovation, shared values and Leadership Behaviors, and an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities, and colleagues. As part of Team Amex, you will experience this powerful backing with comprehensive support for your holistic well-being and many opportunities to learn new skills, develop as a leader, and grow your career. Here, your voice and ideas matter, your work makes an impact, and together, you will help us define the future of American Express.

The Global Litigation and Investigation Team (GLIT) is part of American Express General Counsel’s Organization (GCO). We deliver legal support to colleagues and clients, globally, across all business lines. We are looking to add a permanent team member to provide administrative, operational and legal support to our UK & International Litigation Team based in London on a hybrid basis (3 days in the office). The team member will report to the Vice President & Senior EMEA Litigation Counsel and work closely with four Director & Counsels and one other paralegal within the UK & International team.

How will you make an impact in this role? Support the shared Litigation function within GCO and other colleagues within the wider American Express business by:

• Managing the EMEA Litigation team inbox used for inbound colleague queries, threatened or actual litigation, court orders received, project, escalated complaints, collections/debt recovery queries, AML issues, insolvency matters, sanctions, DSARs, and other dispute related matters.
• Timely acknowledgments to colleagues; obtaining confirmation of any soft/hard deadlines and managing stakeholder expectations where required based on team resource.
• Allocation of the matter to the appropriate colleague or business unit and managing team capacity to ensure even streamwork distribution.
• Identifying and flagging where more information or key documents are required for the Litigation Team to assist and proactively retrieving those where appropriate.
• Diarizing court (and other important) deadlines in the team’s calendars.
• Supporting colleagues responsible for the above matters with initial and ongoing case investigation and management, including routinely retrieving documents via a portal and reaching out to internal business unit teams for information.
• Facilitating good internal document and know-how management by making appropriate use of Microsoft Outlook folders and the GCO’s internal document management platform.
• Initiating and taking ownership of outbound payments, following internal processes, and answering questions from our finance colleagues, with appropriate support.
• Regularly using Thomas Reuter’s Legal Tracker case management system to support with producing a variety of reports on litigation, regulatory project matters for internal and external stakeholders globally; creating new and/or updating existing matters in Legal Tracker within required timescales.
• Undertaking ad hoc administrative support including budgeting, reserve setting and document upload/retrieval.
• Managing various Outside Counsel instructed to deal with advice or litigation matters (including a portfolio of small claims) for the GCO including retrieving information and documents from American Express on disputes; instructing Outside Counsel on new litigation or advice matters; attending calls with Outside Counsel to discuss case updates; reviewing correspondence and pleading drafted by Outside Counsel to ensure they accurately reflect the business position.
• Assisting colleagues with ad hoc projects or presentations as required (PowerPoint proficiency preferred) including GCO wide initiatives, internal and external training, and know-how management work.
• Supporting budgeting and expenses control tasks; and performing other duties as assigned by colleagues from time to time.
• Dealing with inbound and outbound hard copy post e.g. where hard copy court filings are required.
• Assisting the International & UK Litigation Team with workflow and case management and associated administrative tasks as may be required.
• The opportunity to advise on or have conduct (with the support of a colleague and/or Outside Counsel) or a range of small claims and advise on claims made under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (experience dependent).

Minimum Qualifications: Candidates will have experience working in a disputes/civil litigation environment but other legal and/or administrative experience within a law firm, in-house, or similar experience in a fast-paced environment will be considered. Candidates must be familiar with Microsoft Outlook, PowerPoint, Adobe PDF, Excel and other standard office software to a good standard to be able to support with the above tasks. Candidates will be expected to have good project and time management skills. They should be reliable, proactive, take initiative, and have a willingness to be independent and take ownership of responsibilities (with appropriate support) and an ability to collaborate and/or follow instructions and/or flag urgent matters as required. Candidates will have a clear and friendly communication style as well as a good team spirit and ability to work with colleagues under time pressure. Candidates will bring a positive, “can-do” attitude. Ideally, the candidate will bring previous stakeholder/expectation management skills to facilitate a close working relationship with key business colleagues in the UK and EMEA and International, the GLIT leadership team and other colleagues within GLIT/GCO team on a day-to-day basis.

Employment eligibility to work with American Express in the UK is required as the company will not pursue visa sponsorship for these positions.

Benefits: Competitive base salaries, bonus incentives, support for financial well-being and retirement, comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability benefits (depending on location), flexible working model with hybrid, onsite or virtual arrangements depending on role and business need, generous paid parental leave policies (depending on your location), free access to global on-site wellness centers staffed with nurses and doctors (depending on location), free and confidential counseling support through our Healthy Minds program, career development and training opportunities.

Offer of employment with American Express is conditioned upon the successful completion of a background verification check, subject to applicable laws and regulations.