Paralegal

Shoosmiths; Belfast City District; On-site; GBP 18,000 - 23,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Disability Confident Employer

Benefits package

Job summary

Shoosmiths in Belfast is seeking an entry-level paralegal to support debt recovery work for a range of clients. You will help with both litigation and collection strategies, including mortgage repossession matters and obtaining money judgments.

Working in our Litigation Services team, you will handle high volumes of calls, file management, and compliance with FCA standards, while developing professional skills in a supportive, collaborative environment.

Qualifications

• Experience interacting with clients and customers by telephone and email.
• Experience handling high volumes of work with accuracy and efficiency.
• Strong written and oral communication and numeracy skills.

Responsibilities

• Manage inbound and outbound calls to FCA standards for clients.
• Negotiate settlements with customers on behalf of clients.
• Manage litigation and collections cycles of cases.
• File management in a case management system for timely progression.
• Day-to-day management of a large volume of cases.
• Accurate data recording and regular status updates to clients.
• Ensure compliance with client SLAs and internal standards.
• Support enforcement through Court processes to achieve positive outcomes.
• Billing clients for work completed and collaborate with team.
• Work both in a team and independently with supervision when needed.

Skills

Customer service

High volume work

Written and verbal communication

Numeracy

Attention to detail

IT literacy (MS Office)

Prioritisation and organisation

Teamwork and independence

Proactive and self-motivated

Job description

The role

This is an entry level role ideal for someone to pursue a career as a paralegal. In this role you will work on behalf of a range of clients to recover outstanding unsecured and secured debts from customers, utilising both litigation and collection strategies. The team’s work includes mortgage repossession matters and obtaining money judgments against debtors on behalf of its clients.

The team

Our Litigation Services department provides a complete range of litigation and debt recovery and enforcement services. Our team are specialists dealing with both consumer and commercial debt, handling litigation in respect of both secured and unsecured debt. This role involves acting on behalf of a range of clients, including leading financial services organisations and lenders to deliver a comprehensive, high‑quality litigation and debt recovery and enforcement service in respect of their customers based in Northern Ireland.

Main Responsibilities

• To manage inbound and outbound calls to a Financial Conduct Authority standard, which ensures the best outcome for customers of our clients.
• Negotiation of settlements with customers on behalf of our clients.
• To manage litigation and collections cycles of assigned cases.
• File management within a bespoke case management system to ensure that clients’ cases are progressed in a timely and efficient manner.
• Day to day management of a large volume of cases.
• Ensuring that customers’ information is recorded accurately to the case management system and ensuring clients are provided with regular and consistent status update reports.
• Taking personal responsibility for compliance with all relevant client and internal Service Level Agreements.
• Taking responsibility to ensure that our clients’ accounts are successfully managed through Court processes, with a view to securing a positive outcome for our clients.
• Making recommendations as to enforcement and recovery strategies to our clients and progressing those strategies via the Courts and Enforcement of Judgments Office.
• Remaining professional, polite and courteous at all times.
• Ensuring that all training and compliance is completed in a timely manner.
• Ensuring that clients are correctly billed for work completed.
• Managing own workload with limited supervision but knowing when it is appropriate to seek guidance or input from Senior and Managing Paralegals and Solicitors.

Skills And Qualifications

• Experience of interacting with both clients and customers and providing excellent customer service by telephone and email.
• Experience working with a high volume of work.
• Strong written and oral communication skills.
• Strong numeracy skills.
• Accuracy and attention to detail.
• IT literate including sound knowledge of the full suite of Microsoft Office applications.
• Ability to prioritise workloads and to be organised and efficient.
• Flexibility with the capability to adapt to change, new practices and cope under pressure but with the ability to recognise when to seek assistance.
• Able to work as part of a team, but equally to work independently and on your own initiative.
• Be pro‑active and self‑motivated with a positive approach.

Desirable Skills And Experience

• Previous experience working in financial services disputes.
• Experience of interacting with customers to Financial Conduct Authority standards.
• Experience in negotiating on behalf of clients with customers.

The firm

Shoosmiths is the law firm clients choose for excellent service, incisive thinking and above all for our ability to focus on what matters. From offices across the UK and Brussels, we support some of the world’s most exciting and ambitious businesses; amazing clients making an impact. We empower our people to be their authentic selves and deliver together in supportive teams committed to excellence and innovation. The first top 50 law firm to achieve ‘Platinum Standard’ Investors in People, our values and culture are not just words on our website but are the heartbeat of the firm.

We have an outstanding benefits package to complement our competitive remuneration system. In addition to the competitive salaries, great working environment and high‑quality work, we believe that all staff should be rewarded for their commitment to the continued success of the firm through a comprehensive and flexible range of benefits.

To discover more about our benefits, please visit: Benefits Package

Shoosmiths is proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. Disability Confident is a government scheme designed to encourage employers to recruit and retain disabled people and those with long term conditions. The Disability Confident scheme replaced the Two Ticks Positive about Disabled People scheme. We had been accredited as a two tick employer for many years – Disability Confident broadens and develops that original commitment, and demonstrates we have adopted a proactive approach to employing disabled people and developing their abilities.

As part of our accreditation, we commit to interviewing any applicants with a disability who meet the essential criteria for each vacancy. In some circumstances we may only be able to interview those that best meet the essential criteria due to the volume of applications received.

Further information on the Disability Confident scheme is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/disability-confident-campaign

We are committed to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible to and usable by everyone. If you have a disability or long‑term condition and would like to receive information in a different way, or need us to make any adjustments, changes or do anything differently during the recruitment process, please get in touch with the Talent Acquisition team on [e-mail]. We can consider your needs and requirements, and how we can assist you to apply for our roles. For example we can provide a copy of our application via email so that you can complete it using your own accessibility software.

Equal opportunities

Our approach to our people is underpinned by our approach to diversity, inclusion and well‑being. Our ambition is to build a diverse and ambitious workforce that reflects all backgrounds and talents, and a workplace that is supportive and inclusive, recognises and nurtures talent, and has a strong sense of community between colleagues. This means that everyone who either applies to or works for the firm is treated equally, whatever their gender, age, ethnic origin, nationality, marital status, disability, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.

If you’d like to learn more about this opportunity or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact Nina Marshall at [e-mail]