Core Real Estate Associate, Southampton

Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP; Southampton; On-site; GBP 22,000 - 28,000; Full time

Job summary

An international law firm is seeking a Legal Admin Assistant to provide high-quality administrative support, enabling fee earners to focus on legal services. The ideal candidate will have strong organisational skills, be proactive, and possess minimum GCSE qualifications. This is a full-time role in Southampton with opportunities for professional growth.

Benefits

Professional development opportunities

Qualifications

• Minimum of GCSEs with C grades in English and Maths.
• Must demonstrate proactivity, initiative, and confidence.
• Ability to build relationships with Fee Earners and Legal PAs.

Responsibilities

• Manage production of engrossed documents.
• Assist with billing process and maintain files.
• Support Fee Earners in document management tasks.

Skills

Interpersonal/communication skills

Organisational skills

Attention to detail

Ability to prioritize work

Education

Standard GCSEs (C for English and Maths)

Tools

Microsoft Office

Job description

Admin Assistant - 12 Month FTC (Maternity Cover)

Office Manchester

Practice Area Secretarial

Date Posted Oct 29, 2025

Application Deadline Jan 02, 2026

At BCLP, we’ve built our firm on the foundations of thinking differently. Curious, inquisitive and unbound by tradition, we’re building change within our sector and beyond.
It starts with our people, which is why we need a Legal Admin Assistant to join our team. You will provide Legal PAs and Fee Earners with effective, proactive, professional and high quality administrative support that enables Fee Earners to focus on providing legal services to clients, and Legal PAs to provide personal/client management to Fee Earners. A Legal Admin Assistant will be an integral part of a busy team and will need to interact daily with Legal PAs and Fee Earners, and have the ability to prioritize workloads and liaise with other support functions to ensure timely delivery.
BCLP is an award-winning international law firm that provides legal services to well-known brands, including National Grid, The Financial Times, Tesco and Thames Water to name just a few.
Any successful law firm needs excellent support and we are currently looking to expand this pool of resource through hiring a Legal Admin Assistant.

Responsibilities will include the following tasks, delegated by Legal PAs or directly from Fee Earners:

• Production of engrossed documents, particularly those with multiple appendices.
• Printing of emails and attachments.
• Small volume photocopying and scanning, and delivery/collection of large volume document production, courier and repro jobs.
• Processing/submitting travel invoices, expense claims, and maintenance and filing of copies.
• Administration in association with payment for Fee Earners’ individual memberships of institutes and associations.
• Preparation of admin for money payments e.g. CHAPS payments.
• Simple file opening including conflict searches and money laundering requirements, liaising with the Office of General Counsel.
• Organising and maintaining systems to ensure effective document management, including closing files, archiving and ensuring all relevant paper‑based documents are filed electronically.
• Supporting Fee Earners with updating Dynamics; ensuring new business contact details are entered, contacts from Fee Earners’ Outlook address books are shared, updating contact changes and activities when BD activity is planned with a client/target.
• Assisting Legal PAs with proactively downloading and printing reports on contacts ahead of meetings and pitches, populating Dynamics mailing lists with contacts as directed by Fee Earners and editing/refining these lists as appropriate.
• Assisting Legal PAs with the billing process, including updating reports, checking time entries, collating supporting information and liaising with the billing team.
• Supporting the group in updating information on Connexus or in managing and maintaining particular pages.
• Supporting Fee Earners and Legal PAs with the firm inclusivity strategy; key tasks include booking rooms, coordinating meetings, booking meeting room facilities, arranging events (invitations, room bookings, catering, speaker presentations, event materials).
• Undertaking research using the internet, databases etc.
• Creation, uploading and general maintenance of client sites and extranets.
• Collating and indexing legal documentation.
• Practice group specific support.

Additionally, there are a number of real estate specific tasks which you may be required to undertake if you are a Legal Admin Assistant in our Real Estate department such as but not exclusive to:

• Searchflow searches
• SIM searches
• Other Land Registry searches
• Company searches
• Creation of Laserforms
• Land Registry application forms

Skills and experience required:

• Standard GCSEs a minimum of: C for English Language; C for Maths.
• Interpersonal/communication skills: Constant enthusiastic, can‑do and positive approach to tasks and situations, as well as requests for action outside normal scope of duties.
• Ability to take personal responsibility, ownership and behave responsibly.
• Good communication skills, both oral and written.
• Friendly, co‑operative and approachable at all times.
• Remains calm and focussed under pressure i.e. when faced with high volume workloads or difficult situations.
• Ability to build relationships with Fee Earners and Legal PAs.
• Listens carefully and questions to make sure you have all the information you need to take action.
• Displays discretion when dealing with sensitive information.
• It is a key requirement that the LAA is able to demonstrate proactivity, initiative, confidence, attention to detail and willingness to do whatever it takes to ensure the team meets the needs of the clients.

Organisational skills:

• Ability to plan and manage own workload and multiple tasks, and prioritise work calmly and effectively in a pressurised environment.
• Strong organisation and planning skills.

Knowledge/Technical/General Skills:

• Good knowledge of Microsoft and other commonly used software.
• Effective and professional telephone manner.
• Client service orientated approach.
• Able to work either on own initiative or part of team.
• Able to anticipate problems and develop solutions.
• Attentive to detail; sense and quality checking work and the work of others.
• Accountable and professional.
• Ability to develop self and others and be learning oriented, wanting to learn and seek improvement.
• Ability to display discretion when dealing with sensitive and confidential information.
• Willing to learn and understand different cultures as well as have the required patience to ensure good working relationships.

Other requirements:

• Flexibility with responsibilities and working hours as required and willingness to go the ‘extra mile’ as required.

At Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner we understand the value of a diverse workforce and we believe people perform at their best when they can truly be themselves at work. We aim to create an inclusive environment where all our employees are valued, motivated and able to be themselves. In order to provide the best possible service to our diverse client base, we are committed to recruiting, retaining, rewarding and developing our people with regard to their abilities and contributions and without reference to their background, gender, gender identity or expression, ethnic origin, age, religion, sexual orientation, socio‑economic status, political belief, disability or any other protected characteristic.

Office Paris

Practice Area IT

Date Posted Oct 24, 2025

Application Deadline Feb 27, 2026

Payroll Specialist

Office London

Practice Area Finance

Date Posted Oct 03, 2025

Application Deadline Oct 01, 2027

At BCLP, we’ve built our firm on the foundations of thinking differently. Curious, inquisitive and unbound by tradition, we’re building change within our sector and beyond.

It starts with our people, which is why we’re looking for a Payroll Specialist to join our Finance team. Reporting to the Senior Payroll Manager, EMEAA, you’ll be responsible for managing end‑to‑end payroll processes across our UK, European, and Middle Eastern offices.

We’re looking for someone with strong expertise in UK payroll and PAYE legislation, and ideally, experience handling international payrolls. You’ll also support the Senior Payroll Manager with various projects and ad‑hoc tasks.

What’s in it for you?

• BCLP is a highly regarded international law firm and is committed to making sure its people have the most up to date skills and knowledge.
• BCLP want their employees to be passionate about what they do and feel valued.
• BCLP are investing significantly in new technology, including a review of the current payroll systems.
• BCLP will treat you fairly and is committed to equality and diversity.

You’ll be responsible for:

• Preparation of UK, Europe & Middle East payrolls (start to finish, in house and outsourced)
• Providing accurate payroll data to BCLP payroll vendors within set deadlines
• Expert at calculating various international payments / deductions / pro ratas
• Manage BCLP payroll vendors queries & assist them with payroll processing
• Check all payroll input in the software / reports
• Prepare sign off analysis for Senior Payroll Manager EMEAA for all BCLP payrolls
• Good administration of payroll inbox on daily basis (response time maximum 24 hours)
• Prepare & send monthly UK Pension contributions to 3rd party
• Prepare any ad‑hoc payments for sign off and payment (advances, cheques, etc)
• Prepare 3rd party payments (HMRC, GAYE, etc..) for sign off and payment
• Prepare reconciliations for reducing balance UK benefits (Season ticket, Loans, Ride2Work, etc)
• Prepare payroll analysis as requested
• Building strong relationships with other BCLP teams and 3rd parties
• Apply correctly BCLP policies, practices and processes in day to day activity
• Working together with the Senior Payroll manager on the project of implementing a new EMEAA payroll solution, part‑managed (data migration & analysis, new processes design, reporting design, parallel runs, etc)
• Support with payroll projects, as required

Key relationships:

• You will be working closely with Finance & Accounting team, People Team (inclusive of Benefits and Reward teams) and payroll vendors.
• You will be supporting and advising on payroll queries for all BCLP employees (Business Services and legal staff) – it is paramount that you are confident in your skills and knowledge and work towards building strong relationships.

Experience and knowledge:

• 5 Years Experience payroll experience, where min 3 years have been achieved within professional services / legal industry
• Excellent UK PAYE knowledge (statutory rules)
• Previous experience with processing international payrolls is preferred
• Able to manually perform various gross to net calculations and excellent understanding of UK taxation of various pay elements and benefits.
• Excellent knowledge around UK parental leave statutory rules and manual calculations
• Excellent Microsoft Office skills (mainly excel) – you will be managing a high volume of data to perform complex payroll analysis and reconciliations
• Experience with coordinating outsourced and in‑house payrolls (highly manual payroll processes).
• Excellent understanding of UK benefits & pensions and their management via payroll
• Confident to challenge the status‑quo and improve the operating model and processes
• Manual payroll journals preparation
• CIPP qualification or currently studying

Skills and competencies:

• Hard working and willing to take tasks ownership
• Used to operating independently and presenting self‑reviewed work for management review / sign off
• You will have strong and healthy working habits with managing data
• Able to come in and hit the ground running – this role is very busy and only suitable for a very focused and experienced Payroller
• Excellent analytical and logical skills
• You have excellent verbal and written communication skills
• You have a high level of accuracy and attention to details
• Strong ability to develop and maintain good working relationships
• Trustworthy, able to deal with confidential data with a high level of discretion and diplomacy
• Keen to learn new skills

At Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner we understand the value of a diverse workforce and we believe people perform at their best when they can truly be themselves at work. We aim to create an inclusive environment where all our employees are valued, motivated and able to be themselves. In order to provide the best possible service to our diverse client base, we are committed to recruiting, retaining, rewarding and developing our people with regard to their abilities and contributions and without reference to their background, gender, gender identity or expression, ethnic origin, age, religion, sexual orientation, socio‑economic status, political belief, disability or any other protected characteristic.