Support Services Team Leader

About Us

We’re a national law firm with a local reach. Our legal experts are here for you. Whether it’s personal or business, we understand that everyone’s situation is different. But we’re more than just a law firm – we’re a team of people working together to help individuals and businesses navigate life’s ups and downs. Working here you’ll feel a part of our friendly and inclusive environment.

We’ll value you for who you are and what you bring. We support each other and push boundaries to achieve incredible things and make a real difference to our clients and communities. We’re always looking to support our colleagues to work in a way that works best for them and everyone else, including our clients, the business and the regulators. Please speak to a member of our Recruitment and Onboarding team for more information.

The Support Services Team Leader will assist with the day-to-day management of the PAs based in offices across the UK supporting our client-facing teams and clients within Private Client Services (specifically our Family department). This includes the development and maintenance of appropriate processes (in-line with agreed department processes) that will improve service levels and cost-effectiveness. This role will supervise, co‑ordinate and lead the activities of the support functions.

There will be significant focus on continual performance improvement throughout the team to ensure operational efficiency. This hybrid role can be based at any Irwin Mitchell regional office, with two days office attendance per week.

• Conduct 1:1s with team members, manage the wellbeing, attendance, performance, and engagement of the team
• Conduct formal end‑of‑year reviews for colleagues allocating appropriate performance gradings
• Liaise with HR to manage any formal issues
• Cultivate a culture of high quality and high performance amongst the team
• Ensure the delivery of exceptional service to clients
• Operate as a change champion to support the development and roll‑out of new support initiatives and operational processes
• Ensure the quality and timeliness of work completed to achieve or exceed SLAs/client commitments, personally dealing with more difficult aspects of workload or process breakdown. Act as trouble‑shooter to resolve a wide range of problems
• Review and monitor individual employee performance, providing or arranging training and/or coaching when required, to ensure acceptable performance levels are achieved. This includes fulfilling the firm’s appraisal process and providing leadership and guidance through the performance management process for all team
• Assist the family partners with projects and initiatives ensuring the PA support team are operating in alignment with their short‑ and long‑term goals

• Proven experience in a leadership role with responsibility for line management, ideally gained within a legal, operations, or professional services environment
• Experience in Private Client Services and/or Family Law within a law firm is desirable
• Experience managing change in a work environment
• A strong ability to work on your own initiative and identify opportunities for improvement
• A strong ability to build effective working relationships with direct reports, colleagues and stakeholders
• Problem solving skills, with the ability to identify challenges and implement effective solutions
• A high standard of written communication with flawless grammar and punctuation
• A keen eye for accuracy and attention to detail
• Excellent time management and organisation skills
• Proficiency in using technology and IT systems

• 25 days holidays as standard plus bank holidays – you can ‘buy’ up to 35hrs of extra holiday
• Generous and flexible pension schemes
• Volunteering days – two days of volunteering every year for a cause of your choice (fully paid)
• Westfield Health membership, offering refunds on medical services alongside our Aviva Digital GP services

We also offer a wide range of well‑being initiatives to encourage positive mental health both in and out of the workplace and to make sure you’re fully supported. This includes our Flexible by Choice programme, which gives our…