Legal Assistant, Disputes

**MELBOURNE - CBD**

**THE OPPORTUNITY**

We are seeking an experienced and driven Legal Assistant (Legal Secretary) to join our leading Disputes team in Melbourne CBD.
In this role you will manage a high-volume practice which will require your strong matter management skills, in particular billing. You will need a passion for working collaboratively within a team, a proactive approach to delivering your work and strong attention to detail.

**Key responsibilities**:

- Planning for and delivering high quality, accurate work whilst managing deadlines and competing priorities.
- Managing the billing process for your direct team including clients with specific billing requirements.
- Assisting partners and lawyers with client and cost reporting requirements
- Managing the billing process for your direct team including clients with specific billing requirements.
- Managing Partners internal and external appointments with appropriate meeting lead times including travel and diary management.
- Assisting with meeting preparation and the coordination of post meeting actions.
- Capturing and sharing information about client specific requirements.
- Coaching and mentoring team Administrative Assistants.
- Coordinating and managing a broad variety of responsibilities and deliverables (including delegating where appropriate and maintaining ownership and responsibility for outcomes).

**SKILLS, EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS**

**To be successful, you will have**:

- A minimum of 2 years' experience as a Legal Assistant or Legal Secretary.
- Strong matter management and billing experience (Aderant Expert).
- Typing speed minimum of 60wpm with 98% accuracy.
- Impeccable attention to detail.
- Strong time management and organisational skills.
- Excellent interpersonal skills.
- Good written and verbal communication skills with a demonstrated ability to build effective relationships with stakeholders.

**GROUP / TEAM**

Dispute resolution

**GROUP / TEAM DESCRIPTION**

**The team**:
The legal support team provides the practical support our lawyers need so they can deliver the best possible service to our clients. The role of our assistants is critical in assisting our people to perform at the highest level. The team provides high-quality support to partners and throughout our practice areas. This ranges from providing administrative support and diary management to producing a wide range of complex documents. Our legal support team also plays a client-facing role as our assistants are typically in regular contact with our clients on behalf of lawyers.

**What we offer**:

- At Herbert Smith Freehills we value flexibility. For most roles, we work an average of 60% of the time in the office, taking into consideration individual, team, client and learning needs.
- To continue to support our staff working from home as a part of Agile 60, we offer an allowance for home office furniture as well as IT equipment.
- We recognise that the success of our business and our clients relies on the skills, knowledge and ideas of all our people. We are dedicated to creating an exceptional experience for our clients and we value empathy, simplicity and commerciality.
- At Herbert Smith Freehills you will be part of a diverse, innovative culture where high performance, client focus, and highly engaged people are our differentiator. People at our firm come from a range of backgrounds and bring a wide variety of experiences and perspectives to their work with us. We strive to ensure that our inclusive environment means you feel valued and able to perform at your best by being your authentic self at work. We know that our future success not only depends on being innovative and progressive in the changing legal market but, most importantly, on our people feeling highly engaged in meaningful work.
- People join us to develop their careers and themselves. To support this we provide contemporary tailored learning programs, regular career conversations and a culture of feedback.
- This vacancy is being managed directly by Herbert Smith Freehills Recruitment team. We will contact our preferred agency partners should we require additional assistance. Thank you._

**ROLE TYPE**

Legal PA/Secretarial

**CONTRACT TYPE**

Permanent

**WORKING PATTERN**

Full Time

**DIVERSITY & INCLUSION**

At Herbert Smith Freehills you will be part of a diverse, innovative culture where high performance, client focus and highly engaged people are our differentiator. People at our firm come from a range of backgrounds and bring a wide variety of experiences and perspectives to their work with us. We strive to ensure that our inclusive environment means you feel valued and able to perform at your best by being your authentic self at work. We know that our future success not only depends on being innovative and progressive in the changing legal market but, most importantly, on our people feeling highly engaged in meaningful work.

We understand that you have commitments and