Porter Scott is looking for Legal Secretary/Administrative Support Professional. This is a full time non-exempt position that reports to attorneys and the HR Director and provides administrative support to associate and shareholder attorneys.
ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:
- Manage assigned attorneys’ daily/weekly calendars and limitations. Maintain calendar of meetings, court appearances, depositions, arbitrations, mediations and business trips and apprising attorney of responsibilities in advance of commitment. Coordinate conferences, meetings and appointments for attorneys, paralegals and clients including conference room scheduling, meals and preparation of materials as needed.
- Ensure timely and accurate completion of the preparation of court documents, correspondence, and memoranda. Review, edit and finalize documents and ensure timely service on all parties and filing with the court.
- Create shell pleadings based on court rules for attorneys as needed.
- Review incoming mail and emails for calendaring of appointments, court hearings, depositions, arbitrations, mediations, meetings, and interviews. Responsible for maintaining knowledge of court rules, fee schedules, and filing dates for both State and Federal courts. Responsible for reviewing and ensuring proper calendaring of limitations based off of incoming/outgoing documents and correspondence.
- Proofread finalized documents, correspondence and memoranda to ensure accuracy of copy, grammar, punctuation and syntax before processing.
- Receive, screen and transmit telephone calls and messages to attorneys, paralegals, clients and staff.
- Handle incoming and outgoing mail and emails. Scan and save to internal network and hard file. Distribute promptly upon receipt.
- Process all new incoming matters and work with the calendaring and billing departments to open new file. Create initial hard and digital file including initial shell pleadings, save incoming materials, check court docket for missing documents, and ensure limitations are calendared correctly.
- Transcribe dictations and review and complete handwritten edits on correspondence, documents, memoranda, and project work in the daily production of legal documents. Edit and finalize documents, copy and distribute to court, clients, attorneys, paralegals and staff as necessary.
- Maintain digital and hard copy files of all case materials. Filing of pleadings and correspondence in chronological order in appropriate files. Delegate filing of materials in physical hard files as needed.
- Ability to work as part of a team with attorneys, paralegals and other legal assistants.
ADDITIONAL DUTIES:
- Maintain regular communication with attorneys, paralegals and other legal secretaries regarding ongoing projects and upcoming limitations.
- Coordinate travel arrangements securing air, hotel and car plans for attorney and clients, if necessary.
- Organize final documents and coordinate preparation of bound volumes including indices and confirming all documents have been properly executed.
- Other duties as required and requested by supervisory personnel.
SUPERVISION AND GUIDANCE:
- The Legal Administrative Support Professional shall be directly supervised by an attorney and indirectly by the HR Director. The individual shall be responsible for managing his/her own workload and accomplish all assigned work in a timely manner.
REQUIRED SKILLS AND ABILITIES
- Thorough knowledge and understanding of the organization, functions, policies and procedures of the firm.
- Ability to independently exercise discretion and judgment.
- Ability to communicate effectively via telephone, in person or in writing and in a professional manner using tact and discretion.
- A minimum of two years progressive legal secretary experience in litigation.
- General knowledge and understanding of state and federal court rules, policies and procedures as well as proper litigation docketing and timetables.
- Perform proper legal file organization.
- General understanding and performance of proper law office ethics and confidentiality of all client matters and the firm’s relationship with clients (i.e., billing rates, billing cycles), non-public information relating to clients and files as well as the firm’s general business practices.
- Ability to work effectively under pressure.
- Type a minimum of 60 words per minute and be able to transcribe documents at a comparable rate.
- Ability to produce a quality written product, including grammar and content.
- Efficiency with MS Office Suite
Hourly Rate $28-$40/HR based on experience
