Practice Support Executive

Dentons; Milton Keynes; Hybrid; GBP 30,000 - 40,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading global law firm seeks an Executive Support professional in Milton Keynes to provide high-quality support to partners and fee-earners. This hybrid role involves diary management, client interactions, and document management, requiring strong organisational and communication skills. The ideal candidate will have 18 months of administrative experience and proficiency in Microsoft Office. Opportunities for training and career development are available.

Benefits

Flexible working hours

Professional development opportunities

Qualifications

• 18 months experience in a secretarial/admin role.
• Experience providing support to a Practice Group.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite.

Responsibilities

• Manage complex diary and travel arrangements.
• Prepare agendas and meeting papers.
• Handle billing arrangements with supervision.

Skills

Organisational skills

Professional communication skills

Attention to detail

Project management abilities

Coaching and mentoring

Tools

Microsoft Office Suite

Excel

PowerPoint

Job description

Department: Corporate
Duration: Permanent
Location: Milton Keynes
Type of Role: Hybrid
Reports to: Partner
Reference no.: 8847

The Role

To deliver outstanding proactive executive support to partners and fee-earners, displaying a keen focus on high-quality client service.

This is a great opportunity for someone who is motivated and passionate about delivering a professional service of the highest quality.

The role offers valuable experience, training, and genuine career development prospects.

Responsibilities

Organisational and Planning

• Complex diary and travel management with supervision when needed.
• Diarising and supporting the monitoring of deadlines.
• Arranging client entertainment and assisting with organisation of client seminars/conferences with supervision when needed.
• Preparation of agendas and meeting papers.
• Responsibility for organising internal events (e.g. training sessions, social events).
• Creating first draft emails and letters on behalf of fee-earners ready for review.
• Ownership of inbox filing delegating to an Administration Assistant as appropriate.
• Interface with other business services teams and ownership on resolving any business operations problems.
• Managing fee-earner capacity trackers.

Business Development and Client Relationship Management

• Research into clients as instructed by fee-earners.
• Acting as key client contact for non-legal queries (e.g. dealing with telephone queries, liaising with client secretarial team to discuss billing processes).
• Building and maintaining effective relationships with both internal and external clients.
• Supporting client reporting requirements.
• Supporting partners on bids, tenders.
• Supporting partners with creation of client presentation materials.
• Supporting events in collaboration with Business Development.

Financial Management and Matter Opening

• Handling any complex billing arrangements with supervision when needed.
• Supervising Administration Assistants with routine billing and expenses processing.
• Supervising Administration Assistants with post-matter completion.
• Supporting Partners on monitoring WIP management with supervision when needed.
• Completion of NBI forms.
• Preparing letters of engagement.
• Arranging conflicts and AML checks.
• Ensuring all parties lists are kept up to date.

Document Management

• Preparing pitch documents.
• Transcribing BigHand dictations of less than 5 minutes.
• Archiving and storing of original documents.
• Creating and amending data sets in Excel.
• Creating and amending PowerPoint presentations.
• Creating, formatting and amending Word documents.
• Carrying out document comparisons and document conversions (e.g. PDF to Word, house-style).
• Proof reading.
• Creating Tikit links.

Required experience, skills, and attributes

• 18 months experience in a secretarial/admin role.
• Demonstrable level of experience providing support to a Practice Group and experience in a wide range of secretarial/administrative tasks.
• Proficient use of MOS including Excel and PowerPoint.
• Organisational skills.
• Confident and professional communication skills/manner at all levels.
• Proficient prioritisation skills and acute attention to detail.
• Ability to use own initiative and exhibit a professional approach during challenging situations.
• Willing to embrace change.
• Ability to delegate.
• Adjustable and versatile approach to work.
• Well-developed relationship skills.
• Effective project management abilities.
• Dedicated with a reliable ownership approach to the operational workflow.
• Coaching and mentoring approach when working with junior members of the team.

Firm Profile

Across more than 80 countries, Dentons helps you grow, protect, operate and finance your organisation by providing uniquely global and deeply local legal solutions. Polycentric, purpose-driven and committed to inclusion, diversity, equity and sustainability, we focus on what matters most to you. www.dentons.com

Inclusion and Diversity

We are committed to building an inclusive culture here at Dentons where our people can thrive, regardless of their background or circumstance. As well as being the right thing to do, it makes good business sense too. A richness of backgrounds, experiences and perspectives helps us best serve our clients and the communities in which we operate. You can find out more about inclusion and diversity at Dentons here: Inclusion and Diversity.

Equal Opportunities

Dentons is committed to providing equal opportunities for all. We welcome applications from everyone including of any age, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, nationality, neurodiversity, disability, or with parental or caring responsibilities. We also offer flexible working hours.

During the application process, all applicants have the opportunity to tell us about any adjustments or support they require so they are able to perform at their best. Any information you share with us during the application process is treated in confidence.

If you have any questions about this or the role criteria, please email [e-mail].

NO AGENCIES PLEASE

If you are interested in applying for this position, we welcome direct applications via our careers page, but if you have any questions beforehand, please email [e-mail]. Enquiries only please – applications will not be accepted via email.

Please note that we will not accept unsolicited CVs sent to the business, nor will we accept any associated terms of business.