Secretary

The role

An exciting opportunity is available for an experienced secretary to join our Tokyo office today! 

DLA Piper has a unique approach to our legal secretarial function that allows us to stretch and develop your skills ensuring you are given interesting work at an appropriate level whilst making sure you are not over-burdened. You still have contact with clients and partners, but you will collaborate and work with a wider range of people in the department than in a traditional secretarial model.

We have two (2) levels of role in the team:

• Team Leader – monitors incoming work and team capacity and distributes jobs and projects to members of the team, whilst also operating as a senior level secretary. They are also responsible for communicating with fee earners to keep them informed on tasks or projects status. 
• Secretary – provides general secretarial and administration services as part of the secretarial team.

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Working collaboratively with rest of the team to deliver and provide seamless secretarial and administration solutions to assigned practice group fee earners
• Provide high level support to partners and fee earners as a legal secretary; providing administrative support to fee earners with conflict searches and audit requests
• Completes practice group specific tasks to develop specialist expertise (e.g. super-user on specific tools, global billing, client reporting, knowledge management support)
• Responds and deals with external or internal telephone calls and queries in a professional manner and takes clear and concise messages as required
• Coordinating internal and external client meetings effectively ensuring rooms and conference facilities are booked, liaising with attendees and ensuring that any required catering and technical equipment is in place
• Assisting fee earners with the organization of meetings including preparation of agendas and collating meeting papers in a timely manner
• Organising and assisting with client functions, entertainment and seminars, as required
• Organising complex travel arrangements including booking and confirmation of reservations, flights, hotels, taxis, rental cars, after flight transfers.  Liaising with third party provider to obtain visas and producing detailed itineraries
• Managing group and fee earner contacts maintaining up to date client record including in SNAP, Outlook and Interaction (CRM tool)
• Adding value by taking a proactive approach to tasks and anticipating potential problems before they arise
• Ensuring accurate and timely use of our finance management system to facilitate matter opening, maintenance, closure and archiving.  Generating accurate billing reports, letters, drafting bills and issue all finalise bills in a timely manner.  Managing accounts payable (invoices), expenses and disbursements.  Recording time for fee earners when required (including non-billable productive time) on a daily basis
• Completing financial reports where required, from internal systems highlighting outstanding monies to be billed and updating particular client financial schedules where necessary
• Understanding and managing DLA Piper document management processes (iManage/ iCloud)
• Utilising document production for the creation of all first draft documents
• Seeks help or clarification from Team Secretarial Team Leader and confirms understanding when uncertain about a task or when instructions are not clear
• Assists on ad-hoc projects as and when required, for example managing bundles, assisting during team events, indexing documents, etc.
• Any other secretarial or administrative duties as required

ABOUT YOU
Experience

• Minimum 3+ years’ experience as a legal secretary or in a similar position

Skills & Attributes

• Experience working with Office 365 ProPlus, document management tool, billing system (SNAP/SAP) and collaboration tools (Skype for Business, Zoom and MS Teams)
• Excellent communicator in Japanese and English, both spoken and written 
• Excellent diary management
• Strong organisational skills and an ability to prioritise and complete simultaneous projects when numerous and diverse demands are involved
• Ability to accurately prepare and maintain records, files, and reports
• Detailed understanding and experience of billing
• Applies knowledge and judgement to solve problems and make decisions
• Flexible approach to working practices in order to meet business needs
• Armed with a can-do attitude, proactive, friendly and professional demeanour
• Ability to process and handle confidential information with discretion
• Mature, with an attention to detail and highly resourceful and work well under pressure
• Excellent interpersonal, verbal and written communication skills
• Ability to build rapport and develop profession relationships internally and externally
• Conscientious and diligent with an eagerness to learn and develop skills
• Ability to work successfully as both a member of a team and independently with minimal supervision

ABOUT US
DLA Piper is a global law firm with lawyers and business service professionals located in more than 40 countries throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. Our global reach ensures that we can help businesses with their legal needs anywhere in the world. We strive to be the leading global business law firm by delivering quality, service excellence and value to our clients and offering practical and innovative legal solutions to help them succeed. Our clients range from multinational, Global 1000, and Fortune 500 enterprises to emerging companies developing industry-leading technologies, as well as government and public sector bodies.

OUR VALUES
In everything we do connected with our People, our Clients and our Communities, we live by these values:

• Be Supportive – we are compassionate and inclusive, valuing diversity and acting thoughtfully
• Be Collaborative – we are proactive, passionate team players investing in our relationships
• Be Bold – we are fearless and inquisitive, challenging ourselves to think big and find creative new solutions
• Be Exceptional – we are strategic and driven, exceeding standards and expectations

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
At DLA Piper, diversity and inclusion underpins how we live our values and everything we do. We believe that everyone has a voice, and that everyone’s voice counts. We know that the rich diversity across our firm makes us stronger, more innovative and creative, which helps us to better serve our clients and communities. We are committed to providing an inclusive working environment and culture across our global firm, where everyone can bring their authentic self to work.
Diversity of perspective, thought, background and culture combine to make us the leading global law firm; that’s why we actively seek to build balanced teams. We welcome the unique contribution that you will bring to our firm and actively encourage applications from all talented people – however your talent is packaged, whatever your background or circumstance and regardless of how you identify.

HYBRID WORKING
We recognise that people have responsibilities and interests outside of their career and that as a business, we all benefit from working flexibly. That’s why we are open to discussing with candidates the different ways in which we are able to support requests for agile working arrangements.

PRE-ENGAGEMENT SCREENING
In the event that we make an offer to you, and where local legislation permits and where relevant, we will conduct pre-engagement screening checks that may include but are not limited to your professional and academic qualifications, your eligibility to work in the relevant jurisdiction, any criminal records, your financial stability and work-related references.