For many years now, the nationwide team at Heat Recruitment, have been collating retrospective analytical data from their in-house software systems. This has allowed them to create a comparative salary data set across all the sectors that they work in, including legal. They formalise this data and make it more widely available in the form of a Salary Survey.

Their previous Salary Surveys have been very successful at allowing legal professionals, including legal support staff, to gain further understanding of what salaries they could expect year on year. As well as showing how their current salary stood up to the average, and revealing what trends were noticeable in their sector at that time.

Are you a new Student? Or, in the middle of studying a course but finding it difficult to stay motivated? Perhaps you are returning to studying after a long break and are not sure where to begin? Whatever stage you are at in your course, it is never too late to start building good study habits. Improving your habits will make your study time efficient, productive and far less stressful.

Here are ILSPA’s top tips for creating good study habits:

Establish your learning type

If you have been a legal secretary for some time, and you are wondering where to take your career next, setting up your own paralegal practice may be a journey worth making. As with most journeys, planning helps things go smoothly, and before you start delivering paralegal services direct to businesses and consumers, there are several issues to consider. These include (vitally) whether you have sufficient qualifications and/or experience, the demand for your new business, and awareness of the dos and don’ts.

Competency

If you’re an introvert, you’re not going to enjoy large crowds on a regular basis. If you’re an extrovert, turning down every invitation to socialise is going to leave you feeling frustrated and bored.

What if I told you that your preferences for managing time and space are just as ingrained in your personality as whether or not you’re up for going to a dinner party?

The Time & Space Style Inventory (TSSI™) was developed by Cena Block, founder of Sane Spaces. Previously, we delved into how to work with (rather than against) your time style preference. Now, we’re going to talk about how your particular personality type manages space.

If you are thinking about advancing your legal career, you have choices. It’s a good idea to review the different roles and which route you might take.

There are two traditional legal professionals in England, Wales and Northern Ireland: solicitors and barristers. Both are statutorily regulated professions, meaning both have membership bodies and regulatory bodies and the only people who can refer to themselves as ‘solicitors’ or ‘barristers’ are those who have been through the prescribed training process for either profession. Indeed, it is illegal to refer to oneself as a solicitor or barrister without formally being on the solicitors’ or barristers’ register.

Here is a selection of vacancies from our Legal Secretary Jobs Board this month:

Legal Float PA - Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP

Location: London

Salary: Up to £38,000 depending on experience

Do you have two or more years' experience in Real Estate? If so, this might be the role for you! They are offering a full time, permanent, 37.5 hours per week Float PA position in our Real Estate Property team. This role is mainly remote with the potential to work from the office as and when required to do so.

The role of the Personal Assistant is to provide enhanced, proactive support to fee earners to enable them to operate efficiently. You will be expected to use a high degree of self-management and initiative and to maintain a high level of confidentiality.

Those of you who are studying criminal law or working in a criminal law department may not have come across the concept of ‘Autrefois Acquit’ before. In fact, it is very rare, but I mention it here because it has reared its head in the past year. I also mention it because when I was a law student, in the long distant past, legal maxims in a language other than English (mainly in Latin or French) were certainly not uncommon. Indeed, when I very first started to learn law - Roman Law was a compulsory subject for a law degree and the paper was written in Latin. I had come across Latin as a schoolboy, but I wasn’t very good at it. You will, therefore, understand my great relief when the law degree requirement for a pass in Roman Law was abolished very soon after I started my legal studies.

In the increasingly complex world of the private client lawyer there are many challenges, both old and new. This month we will consider four of these potentially challenging areas and review what recent developments have occurred. 

Capacity

The longstanding test to establish if someone has mental capacity to make a Will is set down in “Banks v Goodfellow 1870”. However, since the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) 2005 came into force there have been several (unsuccessful) cases challenging whether the MCA should replace the “Banks” case as the test for mental capacity. For the moment the “Banks” test remains the one the Courts will use and, in simple terms, establishes that a person must:

Here is a selection of vacancies from our Legal Secretary Jobs Board this month:

Receptionist and Legal Secretary – Helen Gagan Solicitor

Location: Bognor Regis

Salary: Negotiable depending on experience

Helen Gagan Solicitor, sole practitioner, running a niche private client office situated in Felpham village, Bognor Regis practising in the drafting of Wills, Lasting Powers of Attorney and the administration  of estates on death requires a Legal Secretary to sit in the reception area of the office to meet and greet clients in the first instance.  The role is however very varied and will include the typing of Wills, Lasting Power of Attorney documents  and some Probate together with general administrative duties for the office.

At the end of last year, SecsintheCity published a motivational piece entitled “5 Key Attributes of a Great PA”. This article showed what qualities PAs have and gave readers an idea of what skills and characteristics they need to excel in the role. Based on the success of this piece, in collaboration with The Institute of Legal Secretaries and PAs, their sister site, TotallyLegal wanted to expand on this topic further and talk about the key attributes of a Legal PA.