Legal Secretary (Housing & Leasehold Management Team)

Due to the success and growth of our leading, Legal 500 ranked, Housing & Leasehold Management Team, we have created a new Legal Secretarial role to help support colleagues with their day-to-day workflows. This position will be based at our head office in Blackfriars, London.

The team cover the full range of housing management services including tenancy disputes, policy drafting, risk advisory work, disrepair, injunctive work, possession claims as residential leasehold disputes in the social housing and private sectors but focussing on the former. The team work closely with the real estate and governance departments in the firm who are as much our clients as external instructors.  Our client base ranges from registered providers to developers and private property portfolio holders, including individuals, companies, charities and institutions.

As a Legal Secretary in the team, you will be supporting the head of the team (Partner), a Legal Director and 8 additional fee-earners of varying levels.

Some of your day-to-day tasks will include:

• Type and undertake amendments to legal documents and correspondence to a high standard using advanced word processing skills including, auto-numbering and formatting, footnotes, comments, cross references and compare
• Creating the first draft of client care letters for new clients
• Arrange meetings, lunches and schedule diaries
• To set-up and maintain files in an orderly and up-to date manner and ensure file maintenance and compliance
• To obtain billing guides, prepare bills and narratives and accounts data.

We are not accepting Agency CVs for this role at this time. 

This role would suit someone with prior experience as a Legal Secretary/Legal PA/Legal Administrator with experience of working in a litigious area of law. You will enjoy the challenge of working to tight deadlines (often dictated to by the Courts) and have experience of managing differing priorities from a range of fee-earners.

You must have a passion for people and providing excellent client care along with an interest in using technology to streamline processes.

In return, you will join a supportive and friendly talented group of lawyers who are deeply passionate about their area of law, within a growing and entrepreneurial law firm.

Winckworth Sherwood is an exciting, diverse, and growing business. We are a full-service law firm with a diverse client base, that prides itself on providing advice across a broad range of sectors and markets. Delivering a first-class service is key to everything we do.

Our clients range from some of the UK’s largest businesses and institutions, housebuilders and developers through to investors, professional partnerships, family offices, not for profit organisations and private individuals – all of which benefit from the flexible, practical approach of our lawyers.

We recognise that our people play a key part in our success and as a result we are committed to their development and well-being. We promote a healthy work-life balance and flexibility, keeping our people motivated and stimulated to deliver great things.

Application review

Your profile will be screened by a member of the WS recruitment team. If you CV is shortlisted, you will be invited to have a short call with our Recruitment Manager, Ash Evans, to discuss your interest in the vacancy. No AI is used in our application screening process! Every candidate who applies to this role will be told if they have been successful or not in moving to the next stage.

Interview (in person at our London office)

At this stage, you will meet the Partner in charge of the team, along with the team's Legal Director. They will provide you with an overview of the team, the role, and discuss your experience with you. You will also have the chance to meet another Legal Secretary to gain first-hand insight into how this role operates within the firm.

We will also ask you to complete a short technical assessment, related to the responsibilities of the role.

This is also a good opportunity to ask any final role/firm specific questions.

Every candidate who reaches this stage will be offered the chance to have a feedback call with our Recruitment Manager to understand why they weren't offered the position, so that you can use this feedback to help with other job applications.

Offer of employment

If you are successful and accept our offer of employment, we will submit your details to our background screening company (Giant), who will conduct a series of background checks. Once these have been completed and we have separately validated your proof of right to work in the UK, a start date can be agreed, and your onboarding schedule can be planned.