Shakespeare Martineau | Client Assistant - Private Client

Client Assistant – Private Client

Location: Leicester – based within the office at least 3 days each week

The opportunity

For this role you will act as a trusted liaison between the fee earners and our clients as well communicating with our central teams internally to facilitate smooth and efficient outcomes for the team. Working as part of a large and friendly team providing assistance to the private client team you will be assisting with the following:

• Key point of contact on behalf of the Private Client team
• To assist fee earners in progressing the client files, to include speaking to the client, passing on correspondence, organising meetings with clients and referrers and other professionals such as accountants
• Initial client liaison in person and over the telephone, providing detailed notes of their enquiries and tracking ongoing progress. Arrange appointments with clients and provide comprehensive ongoing updates.
• Land registry, bankruptcy and lawyer check searches
• You will be required to make regular telephone/email communication with professional bodies, such as chasing banks, debtors, HMRC and the probate registry
• Arranging invoice payments and preparation of cheques for onward submission
• Drafting regular correspondence to Investment managers, auditors, clients, charitable organisations in relation to ongoing trust matters and preparing the regular payments and action donation requests
• Setting up payments to beneficiaries
• Preparation of Wills, Codicils, Lasting Powers of Attorney and other ancillary documents
• Basic Account reconciliation within Excel for Estate and Trust Accounts
• Drafting client contract letters and initial letters for probate files, utilising initial information provided by fee earners
• Collating information for fee earners ahead of client meetings
• Filing and file management – regular retrieval of physical files and both manual/electronic filing
• Updating Aderant and case management systems
• Handling incoming/outgoing post
• Diary management for senior fee earners, scheduling team meetings
• Recording expected payments and claiming unreferenced payments including foreign payments and cheque requests
• Engrossing Wills and ancillary legal documents
• Liaising with paralegals and other team members to ensure matters are progressed
• Supporting fee earners in other office hubs where needed, both remotely and in person if required

What you\’ll need

• Previous legal secretarial or office administrative experience gained within a Private Client team or from within a legal or professional services environment
• Organised and methodical approach
• Confidence with IT systems, including Microsoft Word, Excel and ideally PowerPoint
• The ability to work well in a team and develop good working relationships with colleagues and clients, high levels of emotional intelligence and empathy
• Confident interpersonal skills with the ability to liaise openly and clearly
• Highly enthusiastic, willing to go the extra mile
• Open to new ways of working and happy to challenge to drive improvements

How we work

We embrace agile working and offer a blended approach to where and how we work.

We appreciate that people have different needs and preferences and we’re keen to be flexible, after all, we value what you do, not where you do it.

We have hubs in Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Leicester, London, Lincoln, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Solihull, Stratford-upon-Avon and Sheffield.

This role is a hybrid opportunity, however due to the nature of the work you will be predominantly office based from our Leicester hub. Minimum 3 days in the Leicester office each week.

It’s the people at Shakespeare Martineau that make us so special. By understanding what our people want, giving them the support they need, recognising everyone’s contribution and realising the unique power of teams, together we win. As a firm we are focused on proactively building and developing diverse teams, bringing different backgrounds, personalities and perspectives together. We play to our strengths, pushing ourselves to be consistently better than yesterday and deliver amazing solutions for our clients. We empower our teams with a high degree of individual responsibility; we self-manage and encourage everyone to be responsible for their own learning, knowing it makes us even better at what we do!

We believe in trusting our people to make the right decisions for themselves, from when and where you work, to how you dress; we focus on outputs.

Want to find more about our amazing benefits?

Additional information

Please be aware, for some vacancies, where we receive high numbers of applications we may need to bring the close date forward.

Due to the nature of the work undertaken, confirmation of employment will be subject to a variety of checks which will be carried out once an offer of employment is accepted. Details of the checks can be found here.

Equal opportunities

Shakespeare Martineau is a committed equal opportunities employer. We seek to attract, develop and retain talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures. We value and respect individuality and encourage a culture within our business where people can be themselves and be valued for their strengths and experiences. Everyone who either applies to or works for the firm is treated equally, regardless of their gender, age, ethnic origin, nationality, marital status, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.