Legal Assistant

The role

Working at DLA Piper means joining a team of dedicated colleagues who believe in creating an environment of excellence, boldness, support and collaboration. At DLA Piper, personal and professional development go hand in hand in an inclusive culture. We understand that you are building a future, which is why we encourage you to explore the opportunities and choices that shape your individual career journey.  

As a Legal Assistant, you will provide high quality administrative support to Partners and lawyers in the Employment practice group in our office in Brussel. You will be key to enabling your team of lawyers’ legal services to clients. Furthermore, you will assist them with your knowledge and expertise in the management of their day-to-day workload and in their business development efforts.  

This is a role for a experienced, 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 experience to work flexibly within our fast moving and changing environment. This is a full-time position.

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Work collaboratively with the rest of the legal assistant team to provide comprehensive personal assistant and administrative support, taking ownership and ensuring the work is executed in the most efficient and appropriate way, enabling fee earners to focus on providing the best legal services to clients
• 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
• Organising meetings, ensuring rooms and conference facilities are booked, liaising with attendees if necessary both internal and external and making sure that any required catering and technical equipment is in place
• Organising agendas, presentations and meeting papers, including print production and timely distribution; ensuring that fee earners have all documents and adequate preparation time
• Proactively engage with and assists fee earners regarding work requirements and encourages and supports all team members to utilise the team
• Communicates with fee earners to keep them appraised of a task’s status
• Ensures clear and concise record keeping relating to tasks undertaken and correct filing of tasks and supporting materials (i.e., email instructions / discussions)
• Ensuring accurate and timely use of our practice management system to facilitate matter opening, maintenance, closure, and archiving
• Client onboarding, setting up correct client master data of the recipient and other details that will show on the face of the invoice
• Creating, amending and reformatting documents, where appropriate, ensuring that completed documents are delivered accurately to a high standard in line with the DLA Piper Style Guide
• Dealing with external and internal telephone calls and queries in a professional manner and relaying messages to the relevant person
• Arranging travel bookings, including visas, flights, taxis, accommodation, and rental cars
• Provide administrative support to fee earners with conflict searches and conduct audit requests in an optimal way
• Work collaboratively with the rest of the legal assistant team to provide comprehensive personal assistant and administrative support.
• Seeking opportunities for process improvements, applying improvements and share knowledge
• Assisting with other ad-hoc tasks assigned to or pioneered by you
• Ensuring all relevant firm’s standards and guidelines are met

ABOUT YOU

• Native Dutch speaker with an excellent level of English (written and spoken) and a very good understanding of French
• Previous experience in a similar role in a fast paced environment: professional services firm or law firm
• Proficient in Microsoft Office
• Excellent diary management
• Demonstrate flexibility, and ability to manage a high workload and meet tight deadlines
• Discretion in dealing with confidential matters
• Excellent attention to detail, ability to work quickly and accurately under pressure
• Proactive and able to use initiative and work with minimal supervision
• Ability to meet business demands and work with demanding stakeholders
• Very organised, and can plan, impact and influence
• Team player with can-do attitude and able to go the extra mile when needed
• Interpersonal understanding and problem-solving ability

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.