Personal Assistant (part time, 50%)

Linklaters LLP; City of Westminster; On-site; GBP 32,000 - 42,000; Full time

Job summary

Linklaters LLP in Westminster seeks an experienced PA/Secretary to provide a full range of administrative support, including diary management, travel arrangements, and billing tasks. You will build strong relationships with fee earners, anticipate needs, and assist with pitch materials and marketing activities.

You will support meetings, take minutes, manage inboxes and respond proactively to queries, while maintaining confidentiality under pressure and delivering high-quality client service.

Qualifications

• At least 3 years' experience working as a secretary/PA.
• Proven IT skills and an interest in new ways of doing things.
• Strong understanding of MS Office, Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint.
• Strong organisational / self-management skills.
• Articulate and confident in communicating at all levels within and outside the organisation.
• Excellent attention to detail.
• Well organised and comfortable taking the initiative.

Responsibilities

• Provide full range of PA, secretarial, coordination and administrative tasks and document work.
• Manage diaries for fee earners and coordinate meetings and travel.
• Handle inboxes, phones, client liaison and billing support.
• Assist with pitch material, marketing and K&L activities.
• Attend meetings to take minutes and follow up actions.
• Support on relationship development with clients and internal teams.
• Collaborate with Secretarial team and delegate tasks as needed.

Skills

Strong organisational / self‑管理 skills

Excellent attention to detail

Articulate and confident in沟通

Strong client service orientation

Resilient and able to perform under压力

Tools

MS Office

Outlook

Word

Excel

PowerPoint

Job description

You will provide a full range of PA, secretarial, co-ordination and administrative tasks, including all document work, matter management, billing, developing pitch material, and supporting on marketing and K&L activities.

You are expected to build close relationships with your fee earners so that you can anticipate their needs in advance and understand how they like to manage their time. This will enable you to manage their diaries in a highly effective and proactive manner, understanding and anticipating (for example) which clients / colleagues need to be prioritised at any given time, whether to block out time to assist with their preparation for meetings or whether any meetings are required in advance of any client meetings for the purpose of preparation. You will play a key role in assisting your fee earners with the management of both internal and external meetings, collating, and circulating materials to attendees as appropriate. You may also be required to attend meetings to take minutes and assist with the follow up of any action points.

You will be a first point of contact for your fee-earners, you will be responsible for managing your fee-earners' inboxes, liaising with clients and answering and distributing incoming phone calls. The most effective PAs proactively respond to queries from clients and colleagues on their fee earners behalf, anticipating where you may be able to support your fee earners further, by completing follow up actions without asking them. Building effective relationships and trust with your fee-earners, will allow you to have the appropriate autonomy, agreed with them.

You should meet with your fee earners on a regular basis to support with building and developing strong relationships to enable you to develop your knowledge and understanding of their business, clients, and workload. In those meetings, you should seek to relieve them of any work that you can manage on their behalf.

You will manage all travel arrangements and be proactive in ensuring that your fee-earners have everything they need in advance of meetings/travel etc and are reminded about timings and locations.

You will work with the other PAs, Secretaries and Administrative Assistants in the team and as appropriate delegate associated administrative tasks such as printing, expenses, and invoices, in order for you to focus on delivering a highly valuable service.

Network Building and Relationship Management

You will work in line with the firm's 'one team' approach, sharing your experience and your workload and using all available firmwide resources to meet deadlines; positive engagement with the Secretarial Services Team will be key to your success.

You will be empowered to build effective relationships across the firm, and with your fee-earners' clients, to complete tasks in the most effective way. You are encouraged to build relationships with the PAs of your fee earners' clients to further enhance effective communication between you, your fee earner and their clients.

Technical and Professional Expertise

Using your knowledge and experience, you will support your fee-earners with a range Business Development and Marketing activities e.g., pitch production and the co-ordination of internal and external events, including meeting with event organisers, liaising with Business Teams and ensuring costs are maintained against budget.

You will be proactively involved in the billing process from beginning to end, undertaking specific tasks as part of this process relevant to your practice area e.g., liaising directly with local counsel to obtain invoices for certain matters and producing detailed narratives/reports according to the clients' needs. You will look to reduce billing administration burden from your fee earners, while looking for ways to improve efficiency in the process. You will work closely with the practice group's Revenue Management team and if applicable, Billing Administrator.

You will use your knowledge of the firm's systems and policies to anticipate and proactively offer solutions to issues and ensuring compliance with Legal & Risk policies.

Continuous Improvement

You will continue to develop your competencies and skills in order to provide excellent professional assistance, attending training when required. You will actively generate and implement ideas for process improvement within both your practice and the broader team.

You will be an adept collaborator, working as part of a team with a high level of commitment and determination to help your team achieve success. You will demonstrate a proactive, enthusiastic, can-do approach to your work and have the ability to delegate effectively. You will show support and provide guidance to more junior members of the Secretarial team.

Communication Skills

Strong communication skills are a must. You should be approachable and flexible with an ability to communicate with senior stakeholders effectively and know how to target messages to the audience.

Reliability

Given the nature of our work, the ability to maintain high levels of accuracy and confidentiality whilst working under pressure is essential.

You will be expected to be able to prioritise your own workload effectively and show flexibility with your time should you need to complete urgent tasks (this may include shortening your lunch break or working longer hours on occasions).

Experience required:

Practical Experience

At least 3 years' experience working as a secretary/ PA.

Office Skills

A strong understanding of MS Office, Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint

Proven IT skills and an interest in new ways of doing things.

Strong organisational / self-management skills

PA Skills

Articulate and confident in communicating at all levels within and outside the organisation (written and verbal).

Excellent attention to detail.

Well organised and comfortable taking the initiative

Strong client service orientation - proactive, adaptable, flexible and responsive.

Resilient and able to perform under pressure

Professional approach, strong integrity and appreciation of the confidential nature of the work.