Chief Clerk

Law Society; Dublin; On-site; EUR 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

South Dublin County Council is seeking a Chief Clerk in the Legal Services Department to oversee daily management, supervise staff and handle conveyancing/litigation duties as delegated by the Law Agent and Senior Solicitor.

The role is permanent, pensionable and whole-time, with responsibilities across the South Dublin administrative area.

Qualifications

• Essential education, training and experience: Engage in courses of legal education suitable to the position of legal executive and/or law clerk.
• At least seven years satisfactory relevant experience as a law clerk/legal executive in a solicitor’s office or in a law department at legal assistant/senior legal assistant or equivalent.
• Have the requisite knowledge, skills and competencies to carry out the role.
• Satisfactory administrative and management experience; and
• Satisfactory knowledge of public service organisations.

Responsibilities

• Management of day-to-day running of the office as a member of the Department’s Senior Team.
• Ensure appropriate induction training for new staff.
• Supervision of Senior Legal Assistants, Legal Assistants and Administration staff.
• Coordinate and delegate workloads, training and leave.
• Oversee budget, IT and audit requirements of the legal services department.
• Handle customer care queries, FOI and Data Protection questions.
• Introduce new systems and procedures to improve department functionality.

Skills

Communication skills

Administrative & management experience

Budget/IT/audit knowledge

Systems for legal case management

Data Protection & FOI knowledge

Conveyancing & litigation knowledge

Public service knowledge

Local government knowledge

Job description

The role of Chief Clerk in the Legal Services Department is to oversee the day-to-day management of the department in conjunction with the Law Agent and Senior Solicitor, supervising, assisting and advising the Administrative staff and Technical staff in their work together with undertaking a Conveyancing / Litigation workload as delegated.

The office is wholetime, permanent and pensionable. A panel will be formed to fill permanent and temporary vacancies.

Persons employed will be required to work in any location within the South Dublin administrative area.

Essential education, training and experience

Each candidate must, on the latest date for receipt of completed application forms:

• Have engaged in courses of legal education suitable to the position of legal executive and / or law clerk.
• Have at least seven years satisfactory relevant experience as a law clerk / legal executive in a solicitor’s office or in a law department at legal assistant/senior legal assistant or equivalent.
• Have the requisite knowledge, skills and competencies to carry out the role.
• Have satisfactory administrative and management experience; and
• Have a satisfactory knowledge of public service organisations.

Desirable education, training and experience

• Have strong administrative experience and be a good communicator with customer led focus.
• Be capable of managing, supervising and delegating work to technical and administrative staff.
• Have a knowledge of conveyancing and litigation processes and procedures.
• Understand Data Protection, Freedom of Information and Procurement processes.
• Can manage and oversee the budget, IT and audit requirements of the legal services department.
• Have a good understanding of local authorities and how they operate.
• Have knowledge and experience of systems designed to increase efficiencies and ensure compliance with corporate policy.
• Have knowledge and experience of legal case management systems and using such systems for management purposes.
• Strategic Management and change
• Delivering results
• Performance through People
• Personal effectiveness
• Local government knowledge and understanding

Candidates are requested to give an example of a situation which highlights the behaviour, skills and attitude that underpin effective performance in some of these areas and which demonstrates their suitability to meet the challenges of this role. Candidates should ensure the example used clearly demonstrates their ability in this area and that the scale and scope of the example given is appropriate to the post and level of the post. Please note that all competencies will also be assessed during the interview process.

Duties

Applicants must have a good standard of written and spoken English to
effectively carry out the duties of the role.

Duties will include but are not limited to:

• Management of the day to day running of the office as a member of the Department’s Senior Team.
• Ensuring appropriate induction training is in place for new members of staff.
• The supervision of Senior Legal Assistants, Legal Assistants and Administration staff.
• Co-ordination and delegation of the workloads, training and leave of Senior Legal Assistants, Legal Assistants and Administration staff.
• Can manage and oversee the budget, IT and audit requirements of the legal services department.
• Dealing with all customer care queries, Freedom of Information and Data Protection questions received by the law department.
• Management and introduce of new systems and procedures to improve the functionality of the law department to meet the organisation’s needs.
• Such other duties as may be assigned from time to time by the Law Agent.

South Dublin County Council is utilising Rolling Recruitment to fill this critical post. The nature of Rolling Recruitment is that there is no closing date. This allows us to capture as many applicants as possible to fill these posts on an on-going basis.

Competitions which are subject to rolling recruitment will close temporarily at short notice once a sufficient number of applications have been received. Shortlisted applicants will be brought forward for interview to fill existing vacancies, and the competition will be re-opened to new applications.
It is in your best interest, therefore, to submit your application as soon as
possible.