Secretary Senior - Mergers and Acquisitions at Bowmans (Law Firm)

About the job
Purpose:

• Responsible for and performing administrative, legal secretarial and related duties and offering skilled legal assistance to head of practice group and/or their team.

Experience and Qualifications:

• Senior Certificate
• Paralegal Diploma or short legal courses advantageous/or qualified by experience
• 5 to 10 years legal secretarial experience specifically in Corporate advantageous 
• Advanced knowledge of MS Office package
• Experience in a legal accounting package essential.

Key Accountabilities

Act as first point of contact

• Liaise with people both inside and outside the firm, supporting the executive in his/her duties and responsibilities.
• Acts with a high level of confidentiality and discretion.

Connecting people:

Professional and effective communication internally/externally

• Screening of all calls to ensure that calls are handled or directed to correctly.
• Manage all forms of communication efficiently to ensure that correct message gets across effectively and is dealt with accordingly.
• Possess well developed interpersonal and communication skills and good telephone manner to ensure that all staff members, colleagues and clients are treated professionally.

Diary Management:

Scheduling and maintaining of calendars

• Organise and manage the executive’s diary and make appointments.
• Updating executive on diary entries and ensuring that he/she is appropriately prepared prior to meetings/ events/presentations.
• Ensure that the correct people are invited and available to attend; booking boardroom for meetings and conference calls (VC), booking catering if necessary, making sure enough time is allocated for travel for offsite meetings.
• May act as team coordinator.

Document Generation

• Produce specialized and general documentation and presentations necessary for clients.
• Ensure the documents produced are of the highest standard through accurate typing paying special attention to detail and ensuring good spelling/grammar/punctuation.
• Adhere to ‘in-house’ document style guide to maintain standardisation of documentation.
• Amend documents using track changes and cross referencing, requiring advanced computer and software skills.
• Carry out dictaphone and manuscript changes to various documents.

Office administration/management

• Plays a pro-active role in ensuring that the department 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.
• Manage e-mail, respond or delegate where appropriate.
• Arrange and coordinate team and inter-office planning/strategy sessions. 
• Effective office management
• General duties include preparing documents for internal meetings, copying, distribution and delivery of documents. 
• May supervise junior staff and provide guidance mentoring and support to new staff members.
• Collect and collate monthly department information from Practice Group Heads for inclusion in Management Board Report. 
• May be responsible for maintaining specialist databases.

Travel Arrangements

• Make all travel arrangements understanding preferences and ensuring cost effectiveness.
• Arrange relevant meetings, set up a travel itinerary and prepare documentation.
• Research travel and immigration requirements. Ensure that they are all met and Visa applications are processed timeously.
• Manage unforeseen travel changes.

Meeting Support

• Conduct background research where required.
• Prepare necessary documentation and brief executive for meetings and engagements.
• Action post meeting deliverables and follow-up

Finance Administration

• Assist with departmental budget process, 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.
• Ensure the timeous and accurate time recording of hours worked by fee earners and producing final bills to clients for services rendered
• Compile covering letters and send out final bills to clients timeously and assist Credit Controllers with debt collecting 
• Processing reimbursement requisitions

Relationship Building

• Develop and maintain relationships with all levels of staff as a trusted resource. 
• Maintain strong working relationships with and have open and transparent communication between all members of the team
• Develop and maintain relationships with vendors to ensure quality of service delivery

Competencies

• Adaptability
• Attention to Detail
• Interactive Communication
• Initiative 
• Problem solving 
• Resilience
• Writing Skills