Senior Paralegal

The role

Our success, your opportunity.

We don’t follow trends. We start them. We drive change and deliver more to make a tangible difference for our clients and communities.

We are recruiting a Senior Paralegal to work within our Legal Delivery Centre in Leeds.

The Senior Paralegal will:

• undertake client work performed in the Legal Delivery Centre (LDC) connected to contentious activity, with a focus on review activity connected to disclosure and investigation;
• subject to Supervising Solicitor oversight act as an Assignment Lead, including liaising with instructing lawyers on a daily basis, providing progress updates and ensuring activity is completed to requirements.
• work with, and support, the Supervising Solicitor and other team members.
• support on other work types undertaken within the LDC where appropriate and where capacity permits.
• Senior Paralegals are expected to actively contribute to development of the LDC and the services it provides.

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Support induction of new starters into the Contentious Electronic Data Management team and wider LDC, including providing support in developing content used for training when appropriate
• Working as part of an engagement specific LDC team to deliver work to requirements, sometimes acting as Assignment Lead and sometimes supporting other team members who are acting in that role
• Reviewing all aspects of the instructions to ensure they are clear and sufficient, escalating any concerns
• Ensuring standard ways of working are adhered to
• Managing the expectations of those providing instructions, including tracking progress, anticipating and highlighting issues and ensuring sufficient and timely progress updates are provided
• Ensuring robust checks and quality controls are in place and raising any issues as quickly as possible
• Delivering work and service to required standards of excellence
• Identifying continuous improvement opportunities
• Assisting the Team Manager (Supervising Solicitor) carry out team meetings
• Assist the Team Manager (Supervising Solicitor) identify training needs
• Assessing opportunities to improve operational processes, documentation and training
• Providing support in marketing the LDC to the wider groups

ABOUT YOU

• Law Degree or Graduate Diploma in Law
• Minimum of 1 year prior experience supporting on contentious activity. Ideally this will include experience working with Relativity, or similar document review technologies
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to grasp tasks quickly
• Ability to think differently and be able to recommend and implement change
• Flexibility to adapt to different activities

The Department / Practice Group
The Legal Delivery Centre (LDC) makes use of IT tools and junior legal professionals to add further efficiencies, reduce costs and improve the firm’s ability to meet changing client expectations. We operate from locations in the UK, Amsterdam and Australia and are available to all areas of the International firm.

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.