Legal Assistant
Department: Shakespeare Martineau - Living - Residential Development - Plots - 2102
Employment Type: Permanent - Full Time
Location: Birmingham
Reporting To: Sam Clancy
Description
Join our award-winning, close-knit Plot Sales team and play a vital role in delivering top-tier legal support to some of the UK’s leading house builders.
The opportunity:
You will be responsible for providing high-level organisational and administrative support to our Plots Sales Team to help deliver a great service to our clients. Your role encompasses assisting with all aspects of the plots conveyancing process from the processing of legal documentation, producing accurate documents and dealing with clients. In particular, you will support house builder clients with their year-end completions.
What you will be doing:
- Providing an effective organisational and administrative support service to a busy team of fee earners who act for large PLC developer clients
- Taking jobs in order of priority and takes responsibility for the Axxia action list (training will be provided on these systems)
- Producing accurate documents and overseeing the case management system to process and progress cases
- Preparing the sale pack relating to a part-exchange
- Carrying out post completion administration and assisting the Conveyancing Executives with any overflow of exchange or completion paperwork
- Assisting with SDLT and Registration Process for the part-exchange transactions.
- Obtaining Data Room login details from IT and send to buyers solicitors
- Assisting with the processing of land registry forms and other legal documentation
- Opening and closing electronic and paper files and conducting searches
- Assisting with the issue of contract packs to solicitors
- Attending to clients and other solicitors on the telephone, taking messages and assisting generally with the conveyancing process
- Assisting with monthly billing and other related financial administration
- Processing incoming and outgoing post and arranging couriers
- Photocopying, scanning, faxing, printing, filing and collating documentation in relation to contracts, leases and transfers; archiving, storage and retrieval of documentation (electronic and paper versions)
What you will need:
- Ideally 6 month’s legal secretarial or office administrative experience gained with a real estate team or from within a legal or professional services environment
- Experience of inputting Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT), carrying out searches and Land Registry applications is desirable, not essential
- Confidence with IT systems, including Microsoft Word, Excel and ideally PowerPoint
Key competencies you will need:
- Fast and accurate keyboard skills with good attention to detail and accuracy
- The ability to work well in a team and develop good working relationships with colleagues and clients
- Confident interpersonal skills with the ability to liaise openly and clearly
- The ability to produce a high standard of work, often to tight deadlines, whilst maintaining accuracy and good attention to detail
- The ability to prioritise well and be able to cope with changing demands
- The ability to demonstrate professionalism, flexibility, initiative and self confidence
About you- you will be:
- Highly enthusiastic, willing to go the extra mile and be happy to go beyond the job description
- Respectful towards others and have a positive, willing and ‘can do’ attitude
- Keen to learn, interested in driving your own career progression and be proactive in taking ownership of this
Benefits, Agile Working and Additional information
We embrace agile working and offer a blended approach to where and how we work.
We appreciate that people have different needs and preferences and we’re keen to be flexible, after all, we value what you do, not where you do it.
We have hubs in Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Leicester, London, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Solihull, Southampton, Stratford-upon-Avon, Lincoln and Sheffield.
Want to find out more about our
amazing benefits?
The teamOur award winning Plot Sales team are a close-knit bunch. They are dynamic, hardworking and highly supportive of one another in providing a great service to our clients. It really is all about the team spirit.
The team regularly act on behalf of some of the UK’s biggest house builders dealing with the legal aspects of plot sales for our clients, including planning, development, investment, construction, litigation and dealing with both landlord and tenant matters.
The Plot Sales team is part of our Residential Development super-team, part of our wider infrastructure and specialist markets business unit.
Additional information:
Please be aware, for some vacancies, where we receive high numbers of applications we may need to bring the close date forward.
Due to the nature of the work undertaken, confirmation of employment will be subject to a variety of checks which will be carried out once an offer of employment is accepted. Details of the checks can be found
here.
Equal opportunities
Shakespeare Martineau is a committed equal opportunities employer. We seek to attract, develop and retain talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures. We value and respect individuality and encourage a culture within our business where people can be themselves and be valued for their strengths and experiences. Everyone who either applies to or works for the firm is treated equally, regardless of their gender, age, ethnic origin, nationality, marital status, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.