Legal Secretary at Public Protector South Africa

Qualifications and Experience

• Degree/Diploma/Certificate in a Paralegal / Legal Secretarial qualification
• Minimum 3 years’ experience as a Legal Secretary within a law firm (preferably a large law firm)
• LLB degree will be an added advantage.
• Knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite.
• Knowledge of legal services practice management and billing systems.
• Driver’s licence is essential
• Experience in coordination of High Court litigation (motion and action proceedings)

Duties and responsibilities

Secretarial Support

• Coordinate the full litigation process from inception to completion.
• Dictaphone typing
• Assist in preparing and processing legal documents.
• Plays a pro-active role in ensuring that the unit runs smoothly and requires a fair knowledge of legal terminology, processes, procedures and protocols to relieve workload of professionals wherever possible by providing support on various projects.
• Maintain complex filing systems to track large volumes of legal filing deadlines, providing professionals with easy access to files and precedents.
• General office management and administration.
• Ability to prioritise tasks effectively
• Arrange and coordinate Unit led functions
• Monitoring and ordering of unit stationery
• Ensure that team members are promptly notified of guests/client arrivals
• Make all travel arrangements on behalf of the team and proactively manage and communicate changes to travel and make alternative arrangements where necessary
• Prepare all documentation for appointments and travel.
• Assist in drafting, amending and formating general correspondence and documents, paying attention to detail, and ensuring good spelling, grammar and punctuation.
• Assist in drafting and managing all official correspondence and emails with a professional manner.
• Assist in preparation of presentations and reports as required by the Unit
• Handle diary management, follow-ups, maintain legal services diary, including co-ordination and liaison with relevant parties regarding meetings.
• Send reminders to team members regarding upcoming court dates and other milestones
• Handle appointments and meetings efficiently to avoid scheduling conflicts
• Screening of all calls to ensure that calls are handled or directed correctly.
• Follow up with relevant service providers and internal stakeholders to ensure prompt resolution of problems
• Ensure that the correct people are invited and available to attend meetings, book boardrooms for meetings and conference calls, and ensure that enough time is allocated for offsite meetings.
• Action post meeting deliverables and follow-up
• Updating team on diary entries and ensuring that they are appropriately

Reporting

• Compile and submit weekly reports to Finance and Supply Chain Units.
• Keep track of Attorney time records, including capturing of team time and ensuring the timeous and accurate time recording of hours worked by team members and producing final bills/reports to business units for services rendered
• Assist in handling legal administration requirements.
• Manage monthly invoicing in accordance with the institution’s policies and procedures.
• Develop and maintain relationships with internal and external stakeholders to ensure prompt resolution of queries and a quality-of-service delivery
• Monitoring of service provider invoices, storing of supporting documentation such as invoices, bills of costs, proofs of payment
• Keeping record of terms and conditions governing fee arrangements with service providers
• Peruse, verify and capture creditor invoices for payment
• Verify statements of account and invoices for accuracy
• Process travel and other general reimbursement claims on behalf of the team Follow up bi-monthly with service providers and internal stakeholders in respect of outstanding accounts and other payments receivable or payable by the Unit.
• Assist in managing and monitoring the Team budget, checking input, tracking spend, reconciling on a monthly basis to ensure budget and spend are aligned, liaising with finance team as and when necessary to ensure alignment.
• Collect and collate monthly department information from Team members for inclusion in Monthly, and quarterly reports.