Practice Support Manager - Disputes

This job is brought to you by Jobs/Redefined, the UK's leading over-50s age inclusive jobs board. Brodies LLP is a prominent UK law firm headquartered in Scotland, that provides expert advice to UK and international clients. We have the capability and expertise to deliver mandates with global reach, uniting specialist perspectives from across our firm to offer bespoke legal solutions and advice, resulting in impactful outcomes for our clients. With offices in London, Leeds, and throughout Scotland, we are dedicated to driving innovation in the legal sector, leveraging new technologies and forward-thinking strategies to deliver exceptional value and efficiency for our clients. Our contract with our people underlines our commitment to fostering a supportive and inclusive work environment, prioritising the wellbeing and development of our colleagues to ensure they thrive both personally and professionally. We are also deeply committed to making a positive impact in the communities in which we live and work. Through our pro bono work, charitable activities, and initiatives that promote diversity and inclusion, we strive to contribute meaningfully to society.

JOB PURPOSE

The primary responsibility of the Practice Support Manager (PSM) is to deliver effective and efficient operational and administrative support to their assigned practice area. This service will be predominantly delivered via the Executive Assistants and Legal Document Secretaries/Transaction Support Assistants and Senior Executive Assistant line managed by the PSM.

CORE TASKS

• Provide line management to and have responsibility for the secretarial colleagues supporting the practice area. This includes providing advice, guidance and coaching to team members, encouraging a collaborative and cohesive team environment.
• Work closely with the partners and legal services colleagues in the practice area to develop a robust understanding of their needs, building appropriate plans to support delivery and address any challenges.
• Have a continual focus on having processes and resource in place to ensure administrative and other relevant non chargeable tasks are undertaken by the secretarial team and not legal services colleagues.
• Identify skills and expertise required to deliver an effective service. Work with team members to assess any skills gaps or training needs, partnering with the relevant teams in People Engagement and I&T to address any gaps and implement relevant training programmes.
• Adopt a continuous improvement mindset, identifying opportunities for process improvement (particularly in relation to technology) and enhanced service delivery and encouraging others to do the same.
• Actively leverage Microsoft Copilot and other emerging technologies to streamline administrative processes, improve turnaround times, and support high quality service delivery.
• Work with the partners and legal services colleagues in the practice area to understand and address, update and monitor processes or activities required for risk management purposes including but not limited to storage of principal documents, updating the key dates database, distribution of mail, updating executry packets.
• Communicate regularly and clearly with the legal team and the Senior EA with regards to resource and support including holidays and sickness absence.
• Responsible for line management activities including 3-month reviews, performance reviews and appraisals.
• Plan for resource needs and undertake recruitment. Partner with People Engagement to address any performance, absence or wellbeing issues.
• Monitor unplanned absence and emergency/dependent leave. Ensure legal services colleagues are aware of absences (whether planned or unplanned) and that resource is in place to cover, ensuring consistency of service.
• Monitor and approve overtime and TOIL requests.
• Training of new and existing secretarial colleagues in a timely manner, develop standard training plans and, as required, bespoke, training plans, develop and monitor ongoing training for colleagues.
• Ensure secretarial colleagues have ongoing training including specifically aderant, Word 10 bundledocs and all other relevant technologies and tools.
• Manage the legal services allocations within the team, including for any new joiners (secretarial colleagues and legal services colleagues).
• Update the BigHand server and colleague directory with any new joiners/changes to allocations.
• Allocate Trainees to their EA in line with their allocated Line Manager in advance of the practice area seat moves taking place within the business.
• Carry out additional practice specific duties as required to support the effective operation of the practice area.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

• Highly experienced line manager and Executive Assistant/Personal Assistant.
• Strong communicator with the ability to build relationships and influence colleagues at all levels across the firm.
• Self-motivated.
• Resilient.
• Ability to work through ambiguity to identify core issues, putting in place plans to address.
• Expectation setting & management.
• Ability to work under pressure, often with tight deadlines.
• Proactive in problem solving.
• Ability to effectively communicate (both verbally and written) at all levels to achieve positive outcomes, with a demonstrated ability to persuasively facilitate opposing views.
• Flexible in adapting your working style.
• Ability to work independently, with minimal day to day instruction and supervision.
• Ability to quickly understand / adapt to change and conflicting priorities of stakeholders.
• Ability to multitask and prioritise.
• Actively support the Firm's vision and strategies including embracing and promoting change and communicating and executing on challenging decisions.

SKILLS

• Excellent in the use of Microsoft applications: Word - track changes/mail merge. Outlook - diary management, contacts, tasks. Excel. PowerPoint.
• Experience of DMS (essential).
• Experience of Bighand (essential).
• Experience and enthusiasm of Microsoft Copilot and other digital tools.