PA - Tax & Incentives in London

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Office Location: London office

Department: Tax & Incentives

Working Hours: 35 hours per week, 9:30am to 5:30pm but additional hours may be required. We are happy to consider agile and flexible working patterns. Our approach to hybrid working allows for up to 40% of time working from home and 60% working in the office.

Role Overview: Delivering a professional secretarial, organisational and administrative service, including supporting client billing. The role requires a proactive and responsible individual with a proven track record of independently managing their workload, demonstrating initiative, and delivering comprehensive, client-focused solutions in a dynamic and evolving environment for an allocation of lawyers within a legal group.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Specific duties or responsibilities may be reviewed from time to time to reflect changes in personnel and management structure, staff location or services. All members of the firm participate in our Responsible Business program.

• Organisational skills: Take ownership of tasks, ensuring delivery of high-quality work on time and to expectations.
• Organise and prioritise workload and maintain a composed and professional approach in a dynamic working environment.
• Plan for and deliver high quality, accurate work. Manage deadlines and respond to change and competing deadlines or priorities of all work.
• Demonstrate strong and effective organisational skills, regularly demonstrate initiative, identify issues and propose potential solutions where appropriate.
• Diary, Meeting and Mailbox Management: Support inbox management including e-filing where required.
• Proactive diary management including arranging meetings and associated logistics, conference calls, lunches and other appointments using business knowledge.
• Organising travel whilst adhering to the Global Travel Policy requirements (including flights, accommodation and restaurant suggestions/reservations) and providing detailed itineraries.

CLIENT RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

• Client Interaction & Relationship Building: Build an understanding of the nature of the fee earners’ work, get to know their clients and build relationships with them and the client PAs.
• Initiate regular communication with allocated fee earners to understand their priorities and support requirements.
• Take ownership of client enquiries, resolving or escalating (or identifying alternative contacts) as appropriate.
• Build a network of strong working relationships both internally and externally.
• Demonstrate awareness of client circumstances and pressures, and proactively anticipate and prioritise client needs.

Business Development & Commercial Awareness

• Demonstrate active interest in the firm’s clients, business needs and commitment to responsible business.
• Assist partners and fee earners with their BD responsibilities including pitches and proactively updating CVs and credentials.

Billing and financial administration

• Work independently to a high standard in billing cycles, with a good understanding of client preferences and firm systems.
• Support the client billing process using 3E by preparing and generating bills, maintaining accurate records of expenses, disbursements, and fees, liaising with the billing department to track payments, and responding to internal and external requests for supporting documentation and details.
• Demonstrate a strong understanding of risk and compliance procedures, including the preparation and management of client engagement letters.

TEAM SUPPORT AND COLLABORATION

• Team Contribution: Support wider team and department administration tasks to manage workload peaks and troughs when capacity allows.
• Provide cover for others in the wider team as requested and support team admin (including across other practice areas where necessary).
• The role and responsibilities are subject to change at any time to reflect the needs of the business.

Collaboration and Communication

• Actively contribute to a collaborative team environment by sourcing, sharing, and exchanging knowledge while supporting new colleagues.
• Proactively communicate with line manager on workload issues, capacity and hybrid working arrangements.

Learning and Adaptability

• Take responsibility for your own continued learning, undertake recommended training, keep up to date with and comply with firm policies.
• Learn and maintain strong knowledge in your own practice area.

Documentation and filing

• Proficient in working with long and complex documents; remain up to date with HLC house-style and able to correctly apply to documents, manuscript amends, audio dictation and document comparisons, proofreads own work to ensure accuracy.
• Utilises the firm’s document support services effectively, with clear instructions and realistic deadlines, taking ultimate ownership of task.
• Consistently maintain accurate filing systems, including e-filing, in accordance with the firm’s archiving protocols, effectively retrieving stored files promptly and the opening of new matter files.
• Demonstrate proficiency in firm templates, styles, and document processes, ensuring consistency and quality.

SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

• Excellent interpersonal skills with an ability to interact with people at all levels.
• Self-motivated individual with a proactive approach.
• Keen to take ownership.
• Ability to think quickly and solve administrative challenges effectively, leveraging support service departments when needed.
• Client orientated approach – client-focused both internally and externally.
• Willing to become involved with a desire to learn.
• Demonstrate resilience and adaptability when faced with change, consistently maintaining strong performance under challenging conditions.
• Flexibility with overtime.
• Previous legal PA experience.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong document production skills.
• Billing experience, preferably 3E.
• Excellent organisational and administrative ability.
• Excellent attention to detail.

Professional/Technical Skills:

• Accurate typing at minimum 60 wpm.
• Advanced knowledge of MS Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
• Experience of 3E and billing processes.

Qualifications and training

• Minimum 5 GCSEs or equivalent at 4 or above, including English and Mathematics.