This role is responsible for providing a broad range of administrative and operational support to a successful commercial litigation lawyer’s practice.
Key Responsibilities
- Enhance the lawyer’s effectiveness by drafting and reviewing documents; attending to filing, service, and registration; communicating with clients; scheduling, and file management.
- Provide general administrative assistance such as maintaining the lawyer’s calendar, managing email, managing limitations, and maintaining client records and files.
- Manage lawyer’s accounts – prepare client pre-bills for review, finalize, and send out bills, follow up on accounts, and resolve billing issues in cooperation with the accounting team.
Essential Duties & Responsibilities
- Document/file management processes associated with file organization and administration.
- Prepare retainer letters and coordinate with clients on opening files.
- File maintenance including daily filing, file organization, opening and closing files in-house, maintaining client file lists and tracking system for limitations and follow-up dates.
- Organize, label, and categorize records for use in litigation.
- Prepare bills, letters for billing, track accounts receivable, follow up with clients regarding accounts receivable and all other non-accounting functions associated with billing.
- Enter and track limitations, deadlines under rules of court, deadlines under litigation plans or similar deadlines.
- Conduct routine searches (CORES, LTO, Courthouse, PPR, SPIN II, Bankruptcy, etc.) and/or arrange for others.
- Prepare real estate related documents such as land titles registrations, court filings, conveyancing documents.
- Attend to filing court and regulatory documents.
- Attend to service of court filings
Competencies and Behaviours
The following are competencies and behaviours required to be successful in this position:
- Customer Service – exceptional customer service mindset and ability to work with a wide variety of clients, meeting their needs in a professional, calm manner.
- Responsive to customer needs, meets commitments and solicits customer feedback to improve service.
- Oral Communication – speaks clearly and professionally in both positive or negative situations, demonstrates attentive listening skills, and asks for clarification when needed, responds well to questions and constructive feedback and is an active participant in meetings.
- Written Communication – writes clearly and informatively, edits work for spelling and grammar and demonstrates meticulous attention to detail, varies writing style to meet needs and presents numerical data effectively.
- Character – a self-starter who can work with little supervision, prioritizes, and anticipates work needs, and works well under occasional periods of pressure and short deadlines and demonstrates a mature, calm approach at all times.
- Ethics – always keeps client and firm information confidential; understands and implements general rules of ethical behavior applicable to lawyers.
- Technical knowledge, skills & abilities – Adept at and exceptional knowledge of MS Word suite of products, sound knowledge of billing processes in a legal practice using legal accounting software; Worldox and/or legal document management system knowledge; and an in-depth knowledge of legal procedures in the related area of practice.
- Team Player – ability to work with and be part of an effective, busy team demonstrating a willing attitude, keeping the reputation of the firm top of mind.
Education & Experience
- Legal Assistant diploma from a recognized institution.
- 5+ years experience working in a professional legal environment.
- Candidate must have experience in Litigation and Real Estate.
- Proficiency in Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat is required.
