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The NYC Office of an international law fiirm is looking for a Practice Assistant to provide support to the Legal Support Team. You will play an integral part in providing the practical support the firm’s lawyers need so they can deliver the best possible service to clients. The role of the Legal Support team is critical in assisting people perform at the highest level. The team provides high-quality support to partners and throughout our practice areas. This ranges from providing administrative support and diary management to producing a wide range of complex documents.
JOB DESCRIPTION:
- Deliver high quality, accurate work whilE managing deadlines, responding to change and the competing priorities of all work.
- Coordinate and produce accurate compliant documents and correspondence (including draft engagement and billing letters). Meet required deadlines and negotiate alternate timeframes when necessary. Utilize other services as appropriate.
- Establish effective work practices with partners and fee- earners to manage the matter life cycle from file opening to closure/archival. This includes adhering to the firm’s conflicts process, managing information barriers, contributing to the effective management of electronic and hard copy content and active legal project management.
- Manage partner and fee-earner internal and external appointments with appropriate meeting lead and travel times, assisting with meeting preparation and the coordination of post meeting actions (this includes coordinating/printing documentation and organizing meeting room logistics as required).
- Coordinate detailed travel arrangements for the assigned partners and fee-earners including appropriate visa documentation and domestic and international itineraries.
- Arrange lunches and dinners and other events as required, including reviewing venues and menu planning and ensuring costs are maintained against budget.
- Ensure filing is up to date and undertaken regularly. This includes printing documents as required and filing them in the relevant files promptly.
- Assist fee-earners with expense claims in a timely manner.
- Assist with narrative edits of bills and with managing alternative pricing arrangements and cross-border invoicing.
- Completing invoice approval forms and expense reports as requested.
- Assist partners and fee-earners with their BD responsibilities. This includes producing pitches, updating CVs and credentials, producing International BD visit reports and updating the necessary client information databases in consultation with the relevant BD representative.
- Proactively collect client information and update relevant databases, including client specific requirements, in a timely manner (eg, InterAction) to ensure all data is accurate at all times.
- Prepare files for archiving and manage return and retrieval of files following firm guidelines.
- Treat your key relationships as ‘internal clients’ and demonstrate diligence, professionalism and a commitment to providing them with an exceptional experience including being a key point of contact for the team.
- Take an interest in your own practice area, key matters, issues and ‘hot topics; so that appropriate priority is given to queries and requests and issues are escalated where necessary.
- Adhere to firm, office and practice group policies and procedures, including those that are formal, informal, documented or verbal.
- Take all necessary steps to ensure you are aware of correct procedures. Maintaining inquisitive, collaborative and vigilant work habits, keeping abreast of changes and developing more efficient work processes. Demonstrate this in your interactions with others.
- Demonstrate enthusiasm and proactivity in the workplace, including participating in and contributing to secretarial and practice group meetings, firm initiatives, welcoming and settling in new starters, projects, focus groups, pilot groups, team building activities, learning and development sessions and other relevant activities.
- Take responsibility for your own learning, undertake recommended training, keep up to date and comply with firm policies, adopt new or improved firm and practice group recommended work practices, and share information with others about better ways of working.
- Provide language assistance and use your local knowledge to assist visiting and overseas partners and fee-earners to ‘settle in’ to their new country/city.
- Be available and prepared to contribute towards working out of office hours to a reasonable extent.
Qualifications, Skills & Experience:
- Minimum of 3 years’ experience in a Legal Practice Assistant role
- Intermediate to advanced skill level with the Microsoft suite (Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint).
- Experience using Expert and Time Sheet writer preferred.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with a demonstrated ability to building effective and trusting relationships with people internally and external to the firm.
- Proven high level organizational and time management skills with the ability to think ahead, prioritize workload, respond to and manage changing circumstances and work under pressure to meet deadlines.
- Strong attention to detail.
- Good judgement and problem-solving ability.
- Demonstrated high level experience as a Secretary/PA working in a professional services environment (legal experience is desired)
If you are qualified, interested and looking to learn more, please send an MS Word version or PDF version to jlevinson@bhsg.com. Applicants without resumes in the format listed above may not be considered!
JTL 20_1751565824