Legal PA - FTC; Maternity Cover

Legal PA - 12 Month FTC (Maternity Cover)

BCLP Southampton, England, United Kingdom

At BCLP, we’ve built our firm on the foundations of thinking differently. Curious, inquisitive and unbound by tradition, we’re building change within our sector and beyond. We need a Legal PA to join our team and provide fee earners with effective, pro‑active, professional and high‑quality support that enables them to focus on providing legal services to clients.

The role is responsible for ensuring the smooth day‑to‑day running of the office, covering areas such as health and safety, facilities, IT support, reception and postroom duties and general administration.

• Pro‑actively manage and maintain partner and fee earners’ diaries, making appointments and coordinating internal and external client meetings, and ensuring all work activities are scheduled effectively, including the identification and resolution of potential challenges and clashes.
• Arrange (or delegate to Legal Admin Assistants) the booking of meeting rooms, video conference facilities, cars, refreshments, restaurants etc, and liaise with internal and external meeting attendees.
• Manage fee earners’ inboxes when they are out of the office (holidays/long meetings) and monitor and respond to post and/or emails, prioritizing correspondence to enable fee earners to focus on urgent matters, using initiative to route emails to the appropriate individuals for swift response and action; whenever possible, respond to and file emails into iManage on behalf of partners and fee earners to reduce volume.
• Respond to external or internal telephone calls and queries in a professional manner, taking clear and concise messages for other members of the practice group as required.
• Organize travel arrangements through the travel company, booking and confirming reservations, flights, hotels, car transfers, ordering currency and expense claims and producing detailed itineraries.
• Organise individual client entertainment – e.g. deal‑closing dinners/drinks, table plans, travel booking, arranging small‑scale hospitality for partners or teams.
• Arrange events (invitations and bookings for in‑house and small external gatherings, individual client entertainment deal‑closing dinners/drinks, table plans, travel booking etc), occasional support at event such as registration desks.

• Manage the flow of complex legal documents and presentations to DPS, ensuring house style and deadlines.
• Draft and type client correspondence (including Big Hand dictation), proofread for accuracy, and retrieve documents from iManage.
• Prepare agendas, presentations and meeting papers; ensure timely distribution and planning.
• Support billing by liaising with the billing team, producing documentation/reports, and prompting fee earners; understand Elite financial reporting.
• Maintain and update fee earner CVs on Connexus; add new deals/cases and notify BD of web CV changes.
• Amend/create capability statements, riders and client‑facing documents; source CVs and submit edits to BD.
• Produce engrossed documents with multiple appendices.

Undertake or delegate day‑to‑day administrative tasks, including:

• Printing, small‑volume photocopying/scanning, and managing large‑volume document production/courier jobs.
• Processing travel invoices, expense claims and maintaining copies.
• Handling payments for memberships and preparing admin for money transfers (e.g., CHAPS).

Open files, conduct conflict searches and complete money‑laundering checks in liaison with the Business Acceptance Team.

Organise and maintain document management systems, including file closing, archiving and ensuring electronic filing of paper documents.

Create, upload and maintain client sites and extranets; collate and index legal documentation, deed scheduling and manage deed databases.

• Update Dynamics
  
  CRM with contacts and BD activities; maintain mailing lists and contact reports.
• Assist with speaker CVs, event materials, RSVPs and delegate queries; notify fee earners of events.
• Maintain deal database with marketing; ensure…