Legal Assistant

**BRISBANE**

**THE OPPORTUNITY**
- Are you a senior Legal Assistant who thrives on being busy, enjoys a mix of internal and external client contact and looking to support a busy Partners and his team of Lawyers? If so, we are currently seeking a Legal Assistant to support our Corporate M&A and Takeovers team. This role also supports the Brisbane Office Managing Partner.
- We are looking for someone with a strong work ethic, attention to detail, excellent verbal and written communication skills, motivation, positive mentality and personal resilience. You will share our passion for working collaboratively across local and virtual teams and will have the opportunity to exercise your ‘solutions focus’ together with your proactive approach to delivering quality work. You are more than just your technical skills and experience and we will offer you a chance to use and develop these critical attributes and competencies in this diverse and varied role.
- Your key responsibilities will include:

- planning for and delivering high quality, accurate work whilst managing deadlines and competing priorities;
- establishing effective work practices with Partners and Lawyers to assist them in their matter management;
- managing an extensive billing process for your direct team including clients with specific billing requirements;
- assisting with client reporting;
- drafting correspondence including office-wide communications;
- demonstrating enthusiasm and proactivity in the workplace, including participating in and contributing to local and global projects, innovation initiatives, support and practice group meetings, business improvement activities, focus groups, pilot groups, team building activities, learning and development sessions and other relevant activities;
- managing Partners and Lawyers 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**
- At least five years’ experience in a legal support role
- Experience within a top-tier law firm (preferred)
- Strong organisational skills
- Impeccable attention to detail and accuracy
- Ability to manage high volumes to deadlines across multiple authors
- Excellent interpersonal skills
- Demonstrated enthusiasm and proactivity
- Ability to delegate effectively
- A strong client service mentality
- Ability to work as part of a team
- An ability to manage changing priorities
- High level of personal resilience
- Good written and verbal communication skills
- A demonstrated ability to build effective and trusting relationships with people internally and external to the firm.
- Advanced knowledge of the Microsoft suite (including Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Teams).

**GROUP / TEAM**

Corporate

**GROUP / TEAM DESCRIPTION**

**Corporate**
- Main areas covered | mergers and acquisitions | capital markets | energy and natural resources | infrastructure | environment | financial institutions | funds | corporate restructuring | private equity | regulatory | tax | US securities
- Key clients include | British American Tobacco | Électricité de France | Tata Group | Transport for London | UBS
- Sector expertise includes | defence | insurance and reinsurance | oil and gas | power | TMT | transport

**ROLE TYPE**

Legal PA/Secretarial

**CONTRACT TYPE**

Permanent

**WORKING PATTERN**

Full Time

**DIVERSITY & INCLUSION**

We aim to have a diverse, innovative culture where high performance, client focus and highly engaged people are our differentiator and where we celebrate the uniqueness of our people. Our firm is made up of people with a range of experience and backgrounds. We strive to ensure that our inclusive environment means our people feel valued and able to perform at their best by being their authentic selves 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 engaged.

Herbert Smith Freehills