Legal PA - 12 Month FTC (Maternity Cover) in Southampton

At BCLP, we’ve built our firm on the foundations of thinking differently. Curious, inquisitive and unbound by tradition, we’re building change within our sector and beyond. We need a Legal PA to join our team and provide fee earners with effective, pro‑active, professional and high‑quality support that enables them to focus on providing legal services to clients.

The role is responsible for ensuring the smooth day‑to‑day running of the office, covering areas such as health and safety, facilities, IT support, reception and postroom duties and general administration.

You’ll be responsible for:

• Pro‑actively manage and maintain partner and fee earners’ diaries, making appointments and coordinating internal and external client meetings, and ensuring all work activities are scheduled effectively, including the identification and resolution of potential challenges and clashes.
• Arrange (or delegate to Legal Admin Assistants) the booking of meeting rooms, video conference facilities, cars, refreshments, restaurants etc, and liaise with internal and external meeting attendees.
• Manage fee earners’ inboxes when they are out of the office (holidays/long meetings) and monitor and respond to post and/or emails, prioritizing correspondence to enable fee earners to focus on urgent matters, using initiative to route emails to the appropriate individuals for swift response and action; whenever possible, respond to and file emails into iManage on behalf of partners and fee earners to reduce volume.
• Respond to external or internal telephone calls and queries in a professional manner, taking clear and concise messages for other members of the practice group as required.
• Organize travel arrangements through the travel company, booking and confirming reservations, flights, hotels, car transfers, ordering currency and expense claims and producing detailed itineraries.
• Organise individual client entertainment – e.g. deal‑closing dinners/drinks, table plans, travel booking, arranging small‑scale hospitality for partners or teams.
• Arrange events (invitations and bookings for in‑house and small external gatherings, individual client entertainment deal‑closing dinners/drinks, table plans, travel booking etc), occasional support at event such as registration desks.
• Preparation of key correspondence, reports and business development (BD).
• Manage the flow of complex legal documents and presentations to DPS, ensuring house style and deadlines.
• Draft and type client correspondence (including BigHand dictation), proofread for accuracy, and retrieve documents from iManage.
• Prepare agendas, presentations and meeting papers; ensure timely distribution and planning.
• Support billing by liaising with the billing team, producing documentation/reports, and prompting fee earners; understand Elite financial reporting.
• Maintain and update fee earner CVs on Connexus; add new deals/cases and notify BD of web CV changes.
• Amend/create capability statements, riders and client‑facing documents; source CVs and submit edits to BD.
• Produce engrossed documents with multiple appendices.

Administration & Document Management

• Undertake or delegate day‑to‑day administrative tasks, including: Printing, small‑volume photocopying/scanning, and managing large‑volume document production/courier jobs.
• Processing travel invoices, expense claims and maintaining copies.
• Handling payments for memberships and preparing admin for money transfers (e.g., CHAPS).
• Open files, conduct conflict searches and complete money‑laundering checks in liaison with the Business Acceptance Team.
• Organise and maintain document management systems, including file closing, archiving and ensuring electronic filing of paper documents.
• Create, upload and maintain client sites and extranets; collate and index legal documentation, deed scheduling and manage deed databases.
• Undertake research using internet and databases.

Skills and experience required:

• Constant enthusiastic, can‑do, positive and proactive approach to tasks and situations, as well as requests for action outside the normal scope of duties.
• Ability to take personal responsibility, ownership and behave responsibly.
• Excellent communicator, both oral and written; being clear and concise and using appropriate, intelligent and professional language in all verbal and written communications, including email.
• Friendly, co‑operative and approachable at all times.
• Remaining calm and focussed under pressure, i.e. when faced with high‑volume workloads or difficult situations, but knowing when to seek assistance.
• Ability to build relationships with partners, fee earners, Legal PA managers, other Legal PAs, Legal Admin Assistants and external clients/contacts.
• Listening carefully and questioning to make sure you have all the information you need to take action.
• Ability to maintain tact, diplomacy, trust and confidentiality.

Organisational skills:

• Proven ability to plan and manage own workload and multiple tasks, and prioritise work calmly and effectively in a pressured environment, and adapting to changing workloads, deadlines and new developments.
• Naturally organised person who constantly strives to improve processes and increase efficiency.
• Driven to become fully involved in the role.

Knowledge/Technical/General Skills:

• Legal PA experience required.
• Real Estate Legal PA experience preferred but not essential.
• Sound knowledge of Microsoft and other commonly used legal applications.
• Effective and professional telephone manner.
• Client service oriented approach and ability to use industry knowledge and experience to anticipate needs and respond to requests/queries from clients on own initiative.
• Able to work either on own initiative or as part of a team.
• Displaying sound judgement and decision‑making/problem‑solving skills.
• Being attentive to detail; sense and quality checking your work and the work of others and identifying quality issues and addressing problems before fee earner review.
• Accountable and professional.
• Business and commercial awareness.
• Ability to develop self and others and be learning oriented, wanting to learn and seek improvement.
• Ability to display discretion when dealing with sensitive and confidential information.
• Being willing to learn and understand different cultures as well as having the patience to ensure good working relationships.

Other requirements:

• Flexibility with responsibilities and working hours as required and willingness to go the ‘extra mile’ as required.

At Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner we understand the value of a diverse workforce and we believe people perform at their best when they can truly be themselves at work. We aim to create an inclusive environment where all our employees are valued, motivated and able to be themselves. In order to provide the best possible service to our diverse client base, we are committed to recruiting, retaining, rewarding and developing our people with regard to their abilities and contributions and without reference to their background, gender, gender identity or expression, ethnic origin, age, religion, sexual orientation, socio‑economic status, political belief, disability or any other protected characteristic.