PA (Property Disputes) in Bristol

We have an excellent opportunity for a PA to join our Property Litigation team. This is a permanent position based in our Bristol office, offering hybrid working arrangements. This is a very busy and demanding role which requires a PA to primarily support a team of lawyers in the Property Disputes team but also providing support to the London team remotely where needed. The role requires a highly organised and proactive individual who enjoys a variety of work, extensive diary management, client interaction and working for different people in a, at times, pressurised environment.

The Property Disputes team handles a wide variety of instructions for a diverse client base encompassing institutional investors, funds, developers, landlords, occupiers, corporate end-users, public sector bodies and energy, infrastructure and technology businesses.

Key Responsibilities

• Have weekly 1:1 meetings with fee earners to understand their proactive work needs for the week, record and follow up on actions including diary management, travel, meeting booking, expenses and billing.
• Take ownership of the lawyer's diary management including anticipating and avoiding potential diary clashes, organising meetings with clients/their PAs, arranging travel and generally using initiative to plan and schedule meetings and calls and act as gatekeeper for meeting invites and requests from across the business.
• Proactively take responsibility for travel arrangements (including international travel), conference and meeting bookings and ensuring any travel itineraries are prepared in advance and any agendas required for meetings.
• Monitor and assist with management of mailboxes including acting as gatekeeper to field messages and calls in a timely and professional manner.
• Deal with enquiries from clients, colleagues and third parties and provide effective transfer of information.
• Collate and process expenses including proactive management in a timely manner.
• Play an active role in managing the billing process by working closely with the finance team including accessing relevant reports, transferring time, ensuring correct rates, initial mark up on billing guides and drafting emails for invoices to be sent to the client.
• Play a key role in the managing of key client accounts and the financial management of those accounts i.e. monthly cost updates, updating client documents and requesting purchase order numbers.
• Supporting the team with managing and developing client relationships (and building your own relationships with client teams and contacts).
• Attend client meetings (may require note taking).
• Document comparisons and electronic filing.
• Develop and maintain positive internal and external client and PA relationships.
• Proactively identify opportunities, actively contribute and be involved with ad-hoc projects as given by the team (and across OC).
• Work with the PA team to continuously develop effective ways of working within the cross-office team.
• Provide ad hoc support for the PA team (covering for other PA absences).
• Assist with ad hoc IT queries and liaising with IT team to resolve these queries, particularly for new joiners.

Key Skills

• Experience as a PA from a legal or professional services background.
• Excellent organisational skills and the ability to prioritise work.
• The ability to work under pressure and to tight deadlines.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Experience of billing processes, month end billing cycles, running reports, time entries and WIP reviews.
• The ability to work with confidentiality, discretion and diplomacy.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Good IT skills (Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook).
• The ability to prepare financial reports for clients.
• The ability to create, amend and reformat large documents.

Salary and benefits

We offer competitive salaries and generous benefits. We value the health and wellbeing of our people and our wide range of initiatives and benefits support this.

Our recruitment process

Please note that although we include closing dates for our roles as a guide, we review and progress applications on a rolling basis. At Osborne Clarke we do not make any recruitment decisions using automated decision-making. We are committed to providing an environment where you can perform to the best of your abilities at every stage of your recruitment experience and beyond. If you require any adjustments to be made during the application stage, interview process, or when working with us, please let us know in confidence.

About Us

Osborne Clarke is an international legal practice with over 330 Partners and more than 1,260 talented lawyers in 26 locations. Our sector-based approach enables us to help our clients tackle the issues they are facing today, and prepare for the ones that they will face tomorrow. Advising them both comprehensively and commercially. We love working closely with our clients on new deals, products and solutions which will transform their businesses, markets and even sectors. And our unique approachable culture is not an added extra, it’s fundamental to our success. At Osborne Clarke we value difference and encourage applicants from all backgrounds. We want everyone to feel that OC is a place where you can be yourself and belong, and our range of interest groups and diversity networks - not to mention our great teams - are a part of making that a reality.