Secretary – Engineering & Tech

Carpmaels & Ransford; London; On-site; GBP 30,000 - 45,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading intellectual property firm in London is seeking a PA/Secretarial support professional to assist a busy Partner. Responsibilities include managing travel itineraries, preparing legal documents, and providing administrative support. The ideal candidate will have secretarial experience, excellent communication skills, and a proactive approach. Competitive benefits included.

Benefits

25 days' holiday

Employer pension contribution

Private medical insurance

Income protection

Paid volunteer day

Flexible working arrangements

Qualifications

• Previous secretarial/PA experience ideally within IP or law firm.
• Patent knowledge beneficial but not essential.

Responsibilities

• Provide comprehensive support to a busy Partner.
• Manage extensive international travel itineraries.
• Prepare official forms for patent applications.

Skills

Excellent communication skills

Organised and able to prioritise

Proactive

Fast and accurate typing

Friendly and approachable

Tools

Microsoft Office

Epoline

Inprotech

SharePoint

Job description

The role

Our Secretarial function is instrumental to our business. We support our attorneys and clients with their daily responsibilities to sustain a streamlined workflow. We are equipped with the knowledge and expertise to handle queries from our clients to an exceptional, professional standard and are committed to providing prompt support.

What you’ll be doing

In this role, you will provide comprehensive support to a busy Partner, encompassing both high-level PA responsibilities and a range of administrative tasks.

Reporting to the Team Leader you are responsible for a range of activities including:

PA/Secretarial support

• Working closely with the Partner, meeting regularly to review progress, discuss upcoming work, and provide updates on outstanding matters
• Inbox management as required
• Diary management including scheduling and coordinating in-person and virtual meetings, preparing relevant papers and presentations, and managing all associated logistics including room bookings, refreshments, and liaising with internal teams.
• Managing extensive international travel itineraries, coordinating flights, accommodations and schedules.
• Preparing invoices by reviewing and editing narratives in the billing portal, verifying client details, receiving unbilled WIP lists, and liaising with the accounts team as required.
• Liaising with clients and the EPO directly where necessary

Legal Support

• Proactively preparing official forms for UK, European and international patent and design applications and some foreign patent applications
• Daily monitoring of prompt schedules, dealing with cases independently where possible, and liaising with records to remove old prompts
• Amending letters, emails, specifications (including using tracked changes), ensuring completed documents are delivered accurately and to a consistently high standard
• Using the internal database to look up case/client information, using links to relevant Patent Office websites
• Preparing papers and bundles for oral proceedings
• Preparing standard reporting letters without instruction

Other

• File management including scanning and managing case files via the DMS (SharePoint)
• Implementing up-to-date client special instructions
• Requesting translations
• Sending out assignment documents and forwarding on communications from foreign attorneys
• Monitoring e-workspaces when fee earners are away, dealing with files independently, where possible
• Attending team meetings and practice group meetings
• Supporting additional project work when required
• Providing cover in other secretaries’ absence

Skills and experience we’re looking for:

• Patent knowledge beneficial but not essential
• Previous secretarial/PA experience ideally within IP or law firm

Person Specification:

• Proactive with the ability to work on own initiative as well as being a strong team player
• Has the ability to anticipate problems and devise solutions to meet them
• Is flexible when required
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal
• Organised and able to prioritise turnaround time of work
• Able to meet tight deadlines and work under pressure
• Fast and accurate typing
• Ability to compose simple letters with little to no assistance
• Friendly, personable and approachable

Systems Used:

• IT literate with knowledge of Microsoft Office tools (Outlook/PowerPoint/Excel/Word etc.)
• Epoline
• Inprotech
• SharePoint

What we offer

We offer a competitive benefits package that currently includes the following:

• 25 days’ holiday, increasing by 1 day per year up to our maximum of 28 days.
• Employer pension contribution of 5% in your first year, with a minimum 3% employee contribution, increasing to 10% employer contribution after one year’s service.
• Holiday buy scheme, with the option to purchase up to 5 additional days.
• Holiday bonus, starting at £400 per year, increasing each year up to a maximum of £2,000.
• Private medical insurance via Bupa, where you’ll be eligible to join the month following your start date. You will also have the option to add dependants, subject to a monthly cost.
• Free confidential access to 24/7 medical, mental, legal and financial wellbeing support via Health Assured and WeCare from your first day of employment.
• Access to internal Mental Health First Aiders, all of whom have completed the Mental Health First Aid England accredited training programme and champion wellbeing across the firm.
• Life assurance of 4x your base salary.
• Income protection, with cover for up to 5 years and compensating for up to 75% of your base salary.
• Season ticket loan.
• Access to Payroll Giving or Give As You Earn (GAYE) which allows you to donate to charity through your monthly pay.
• We’re passionate about the benefits of corporate volunteering and offer all employees 1 paid volunteer day per year.

We’re very proud of our collegiate culture and the value that working together brings. Through our commitment to enabling everyone to do their best work, we offer a range of family and life-friendly policies.

This includes competitive enhanced maternity, paternity, adoption, surrogacy and shared parental leave schemes, if you’ve been with us for at least 26 weeks. Furthermore, our fertility policy aims to assist employees with both the logistical and emotional aspects of undergoing fertility treatment. This includes paid leave of up to five days for fertility treatment.

We also recognise the needs of balancing home life around the requirements of your role. Depending on the work you do and your team, we offer informal arrangements such as hybrid and agile working, as well as more formal arrangements such as flexible hours and part-time working. We’re very happy to discuss flexible and life-friendly working options during the recruitment process and upon joining us.

We are proud of our inclusive culture where individual differences are celebrated, and we are committed to providing equal opportunities to all employees and job applicants. We do not tolerate discrimination either directly or indirectly on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief, marital or civil partnership status, age, disability, pregnancy and maternity, or any other characteristic protected by law. Our approach is embodied in our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy, as well as our diversity and inclusion programmes.

Please note that we do not accept unsolicited CVs or speculative approaches from recruitment agencies unless they have been explicitly instructed on this vacancy by a member of our recruitment team.

Please mention IP Careers when applying to Carpmaels & Ransford.