Secretary/Personal Assistant

New York, NY

Reports to: Assigned Partners and Fee Earners Assigned, Business Services Managers, Group Executive Assistant

Temp assignment, must be able to start immediately and assignment lasts through December

Primary Objectives

To provide secretarial and administrative support at a consistent and high standard to partners, fee-earners and Business Services staff in the practice group to meet client requirements and deadlines to deliver an exceptional client experience. 

Primary Responsibilities

• Deliver high quality, accurate work whilst managing deadlines, responding to change and the competing priorities of all work.
• Coordinate and produce accurate Firm 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.
• Implement effective telephone call management and other communication work practices. Ensure callers and other parties receive a consistent, high quality service and their expectations are managed. Take all steps necessary to ensure that team members are aware of partners’, fee earners’ and your own movements.
• 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.
• Manage own email and partner and fee-earners’ email as required. This includes timely filing of emails (including hard copy filing where necessary), filtering incoming correspondence, proactively dealing with queries and meeting invites. Deal with hard copy mail/post in the same manner.
• 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.

Key Performance Indicators

• Assigned partners, fee-earners and business services managers are satisfied with the level of administrative support they receive, and agree that the quality of support you provide meets expectations.
• Documents produced and coordinated are accurate, comply with Firm’s standards and guidelines, and are completed within agreed timeframes.
• Task based work is consistently completed as requested, within agreed timeframes and is of a high standard.
• A reputation within the practice group for being an effective, helpful and supportive team member.
• Colleagues (including all fee-earners, secretaries and Business Services staff) are confident that they can approach you and will receive a level of assistance that is appropriate in the circumstances.
• A reputation amongst Business Services groups for being an effective communicator and for working with them to achieve positive outcomes.
• Compliance with the firm’s and practice group’s policies, guidelines and recommended ways of working.
• Assigned partner and fee-earner client contact and activity information is up to date and accurate.
• Support provided to partners and fee-earners on matter management activities has assisted to meet client and firm obligations in an effective manner (eg, assisting in WIP and debt management, client communication).
• Actively participate in the firm’s annual performance review process, using knowledge of the Business Support Competency Framework to set professional goals.
• Partners and fee-earners appointment schedules run smoothly, their travel itineraries support business requirements, preparatory support is provided and their needs are anticipated and managed whilst out of the office.
• You take full ownership and responsibility for any absences from the office (including planned and unexpected absences). This includes leaving work in an appropriate state of order, leaving discoverable and up to date handover information, providing handover and full communication of the absence that is appropriate to the circumstances and in accordance with the process in place for the group.

Qualifications, Skills & Experience

• Typing speed minimum of 55wpm with 98% accuracy.
• Intermediate to advanced skill level with the Microsoft suite (Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint).
• 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).

Competencies

Personal Leadership

• Takes pride in their work and positively impacts those around them
• Inspires confidence by consistently delivering quality work
• Maintains composure under pressure by finding ways to manage their reactions to challenging situations
• Behaves consistently with the firm’s values and brand and inspires this in others 

Connects and Collaborates with People

• Takes an active interest in others and gets to know the people they interact with
• Treats people with respect and in a fair and consistent way
• Adopts a positive communication style, even when challenged by others

Contributes to the Success of Others

• Maintains an awareness of the firm’s purpose, objectives and structure
• Recognizes how their work contributes to and affects the work of others, and prioritizes and communicates accordingly
• Identifies opportunities to assist others and readily volunteers their help

Enhances the Client Experience

• Finds ways to enhance the experience of the firm’s clients through their daily tasks.
• Shows a willingness to go the extra mile to deliver great service. 

Achieves Results

• Goes above and beyond to contribute to the success of the firm
• Pays attention to the quality and accuracy of their work
• Suggests new ideas or ways of doing things in a confident, constructive and sensitive way