Legal Secretary

Job Description

The Practice Assistant is responsible for providing professional core business support to the firm's fee earners. The support provided will be as part of a team with shared responsibilities and collective accountability, working with the firm's other Business Professionals teams. The Practice Assistant is expected to create positive working relationships with fee earners and their colleagues in order to provide excellent business support. The Practice Assistant is responsible for ensuring that all activities are carried out in compliance with the firm's policies and regulatory requirements.

The Practice Assistant must be flexible and adaptable, with the ability to adjust to different practice areas and teams, as required.

**Key responsibilities**:
This role sits within the Milan office and includes responsibility for delegating and steering work to the appropriate specialist CC team, which may include the Service Centre, DPU, Design and other Business Professionals teams. The Practice Assistant is responsible for providing clear direction and taking full ownership and management of their work to ensure that tasks are prioritized by business need and completed in a timely manner. When working agilely, the Practice Assistant is expected to provide a consistently excellent level of support without disruption to the business and stakeholders.

**Day-to-day activities**
- Managing and organising agendas of supported partners and fee earners, managing appointments autonomously.
- Supporting partners with update of contacts.
- Supporting partners with time-keeping tasks.
- Processing and managing expenses and reimbursements for all fee earners.
- Managing al matter related activities from inception through to billing, such as ad hoc conflict checking, opening of new matters, AML for new clients/debtors.
- Arranging and managing domestic and international travel.
- Full assistance with all commercial discipline/billing activities.
- Processing and managing all expenses and invoices.
- Attending work in progress (WIP) and debtor meetings, as required, and following up on action points with the Billing team.
- Assisting with good housekeeping of documentation, including post-closing administration;
- Managing beginning-to-end document management processes, such as amending, formatting, running sanity checks.

**Client Focus and Support**
- Progressing and assisting with client relationship initiatives.
- Reminding and assisting fee earners with the updating of CVs.
- Assisting during pitching process by creating or amending PowerPoint presentations, Excel documents or fee quote documentation.
- Assisting BD team with tender offers' procedures and onboarding / management of supplier portals.
- Supporting BD team with client relationship activities.
- Supporting BD team with Matter Capture information.

**Financial and Matter Management**
- Processing and managing all expenses and invoices.
- Processing and managing reimbursements for all fee earners.
- Keeping track of updates to pre-bills, and ensuring smooth running and preparation of bills.
- Attending work in progress (WIP) and debtor meetings, as required, and following up on action points with the Billing team.
- Assisting with good housekeeping of documentation, including post-closing administration.

**Other Support Activities**
- Assisting Partners and fee earners during appraisal processes.
- Encouraging and proactively following up with fee earners on completion of their mandatory training requirements.

**Qualifications**:
**Skills**
- Exceptional organizational skills with excellent attention to detail
- Understands the importance of the role and how this contributes to the practice area and wider firm strategy
- Client orientated with proven experience of building strong relationships both internally and externally
- Excellent communication skills, both written and oral
- Aware of confidentiality and the use of discretion, when required

**Experience**
- Previous experience of working as an executive assistant within a legal firm required
- Supporting new business, client or business development teams with pitches, events, marketing materials and client research
- Proven experience of supporting on financial matters, i.e. knowledge of recording time sheets, billing and e-billing, expenses and invoices.

**Knowledge**
- Intermediate to advanced knowledge of Word, Outlook, Excel and PowerPoint
- Experience of setting up data rooms and other document sharing platforms would be an advantage
- Experience on supplier and e-billing platforms is a plus
- Knowledge of legal processes and matter management is required
- Knowledge of any of the following would be an advantage, but not essential: Intapp, Intapp Time, Interaction, Kira and Litera Transact.

**Qualifications**
- Higher education

Company Description

Clifford Chance is one of the world's leading law firms, helping clients achieve their goals by combining the highest global standards