Legal Assistant

The role

THE OPPORTUNITY

We are recruiting a Legal Assistant to provide secretarial and administrative support to the lawyers of the Litigation & Regulatory practice group in Brussels. You will provide the fee earners with effective, high quality support that appropriately meet their requirements, enabling them to focus on providing legal services to clients. Furthermore, you will assist fee earners to maximise the amount of time they are able to spend fee earning, undertaking business development activities, and assisting them in the management of their day-to-day workload. You may be required to undertake additional duties from time to time, when necessary.
 
This is a role for a proactive and enthusiastic individual who thrives on delivering results and who is looking to build a career as part of a leading global law firm. You will have the skills, knowledge and attributes to work flexibly within our fast moving and changing environment. This is a full time position (38 hours/week).

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Work collaboratively with the rest of the secretarial team to provide comprehensive PA, Secretarial and administrative support, taking ownership and ensuring the work is executed in the most efficient and appropriate way
• Actively engage with the workflow through the hub inbox, directing work through it and taking work from in in accordance with priority
• Proactively manage and maintain fee earner diaries; coordinating meetings with internal and external clients, ensuring all work activities are scheduled effectively, including the identification and resolution of potential challenges
• Managing booking of meeting rooms, conference and video facilities; liaising with attendees when needed, and making sure they receive first class hospitality experience
• Dealing with external and internal telephone calls and queries in a professional manner and relaying messages to the relevant person
• Organising and managing travel arrangements; preparation of key documents including visas, correspondence (invitation letters), invoices and expense claims
• Amending and reformatting documents, where appropriate, ensuring that completed documents are delivered accurately to a high standard
• Preparing presentations and meeting papers, including print production
• File management; organising and opening of matters, closing of files, archiving and ensuring that all relevant documents are filed electronically and paper based, when required
• Managing the billing process using Elite (internal financial system). Assisting fee earners by liaising with other parties to raise invoices. Liaise with other global offices to follow relevant procedures, managing fee earners to complete all necessary time recordings or to enter their time recordings on their behalf
• Create bills, disbursements, create and amend narratives as well as requesting for credit notes and inter-office bills, and liaising with international offices where necessary
• Complete financial reports where required for internal systems, highlighting outstanding earnings to be billed, and updating client where needed
• Manage group and fee earner contacts to ensure they are up-to-date
• Provide administrative support to fee earners with conflict searches and audit requests
• Assist on ad-hoc projects – for example, managing bundles, indexing documents etc.

ABOUT YOU

• Native Dutch speaker with excellent command of English. French is a big plus
• Demonstrate flexibility, and ability to manage a high workload and meet tight deadlines
• Ability to meet business demands and work with demanding stakeholders
• Demonstrate a capability to manage and understand the end-to-end billing process of legal firms
• Previous experience as a legal Secretary
• Discretion in dealing with confidential matters
• Team player with a positive 'can do' attitude; common sense, flexible
• Proficient in Microsoft Office
• Very organised, and can plan, impact and influence
• Proactive and able to use initiative and work with minimal supervision
• Excellent attention to detail; ability to work quickly and accurately under pressure
• Interpersonal understanding and problem solving ability

ABOUT US

DLA Piper is a global law firm with lawyers 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.

We support anyone with a disability or long term health condition to ensure they have the opportunity to perform at their best. If you have not done so already, please let us know if you require any support so we can make the right adjustments and considerations should they be required.

AGILE 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, 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 references from previous employers.