Legal Secretary in Plymouth

The firm at Broadfield Law keeps the bigger picture in mind. We care about helping shape what’s important to people and society. We work constructively with our colleagues and clients and explain things clearly in a friendly and approachable way. Above all, our focus is on doing things right and doing them well. So, we build longstanding and mutually beneficial client relationships based on trust and genuine partnership.

ED&I at Broadfield Law, our commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion sits at the heart of who we are as a firm as we are passionate about ensuring we create a work environment where everyone feels safe, respected, and fully supported to be themselves. Our ED&I work goes beyond how we work with our colleagues. Our firm values – we act with respect, we work in partnership, and we find solutions – are deeply embedded in ED&I principles, and heavily inform how we approach client relationships, as well as external partnerships.

The Real Estate Group provides high quality advice and service to developer clients providing a complete service right from acquisition of land through the planning stage, the creation of the new development site and the eventual sales of the individual homes.

An opportunity has arisen for a Legal Administrator/Legal Secretary to join our Real Estate Development team based in our Reading office. The role will work alongside the partners and fee earners in the team to provide them with general administrative and legal support.

The main tasks of this role would include:

• General administrative tasks such as paper filing, electronic filing (profiling), scanning and printing.
• Liaising with clients where required to ensure client compliance (money laundering checks, conflict of interest checks and client care letters);
• File management; including file opening, closing, matter balance clearance, scheduling, archiving, and maintaining client information in databases.
• Answering emails, phone calls and dealing with client queries, including taking messages wherever appropriate.
• Document management; including creating and amending documents, engrossments and creating DocuSign envelopes.
• Conducting pre-completion/exchange tasks such as research, ordering official copies, requesting searches on the InfoTrack portal and downloading documents from planning portals.
• Data site management and creation; monitoring and downloading documents from third party data sites.
• Drafting payment requests, conducting checks to verify details, managing payment process on fee earner behalf.
• Drafting, submitting and monitoring post-completion formalities with HMRC, Companies House and Land Registry. Including replying to requisitions.
• Matter management and billing; handling general administrative tasks such as inbox monitoring, expense claims, meeting preparation (i.e. room bookings, catering etc;) and any other reasonable task requested by the fee earners.
• Working as part of a support team; assisting with overflow of work/cover for absences.
• Providing support to the wider real estate department as appropriate.
• Any other duties as reasonably required by the partners and managers of the firm.

Systems used: Salesforce, Elite, DocuSign, Sharefile, High Q, InfoTrack, Filetrack, NetDocuments and Intapp.

Who we are looking for:

Qualifications: A Level or Equivalent or above is preferred.

• A strong candidate will have 1-2 years previous administrative experience within an office environment. Experience at a law firm preferred.
• Experience in a Real Estate department (commercial or residential) an advantage.

• An organised approach to working.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Ability to prioritise.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills.
• A flexible ‘can do’ approach with the ability to work proactively, use own initiative and offer solutions.
• Reliable and adaptable team player with the ability to adapt to changing requirements.

Job Specification: 9.00am to 5.00pm, Monday to Friday – 35 hours per week. Reasonable additional hours may be required from time to time. Minimum 3 days a week in office, subject to change based on the needs of the department.