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

Private Client Legal Secretary – Venn Group 

Location: Birmingham

Salary: Market Related

Legal 500 law firm based in Birmingham is seeking a motivated Legal Secretary to join their progressive Private Client department.

You will require you to have a professional and personable attitude whilst supporting multiple Fee Earners within the department. This role will require you to undertake diary and file management, liaise with clients and third parties, organise conference and meeting calls and file Wills and HMRC forms.

View the full job description here:           

Introducing, Dr Avi Bhangal

I am a legal assistant working at TLT LLP, a UK law firm headquartered in Bristol which was named Law Firm of the Year at The Lawyer Awards 2021. Prior to this role I had completed my LLB/LPC/LLM/PhD at the University of Huddersfield, in West Yorkshire.

Whilst studying I had the opportunity to take part in many legal roles including a mini pupillage. 

Working at TLT LLP

In September I started work with TLT LLP working in the Financial Service Disputes and Investigations department. As this was during Covid-19, I was remote working but treated it as a normal working day with normal working hours. 

My day overview

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

Legal Secretary – TMJ Legal Services

Location: Wingate

Salary: To be agreed

An experienced Conveyancing Legal Secretary required to join a highly regarded and established solicitors’ firm. The successful applicant will be based at the Wingate office but would be expected to travel between the firm’s other offices, if required.

View the full job description here:           

https://www.institutelegalsecretaries.com/jobs/candidate/job/213911/

Legal Secretary – TMJ Legal Services

Location: Hartlepool

Salary: To be agreed

With the cost of living continuing to rise and the colder months on the way, many of us will be worrying about our energy bills over winter and into next year. Those of us who continue to work from home will have the added concern of knowing that we need to ensure we have an efficient and comfortable space to work from during the day, as well as a snug and relaxed place to enjoy in our free time, without sending already high bills even higher.

So, what can we do if we cannot, or do not want, to return to an office to work. ILSPA have compiled our top tips for how to save energy whilst working from home.

1. Location, Location, Location

Registration for The PA Show Canary Wharf is now live, and you can apply for your pass today!

Following popular demand from the PA Community, we are excited to launch a new boutique edition of the popular PA Show on the 2 November at the East Wintergarden, Canary Wharf.

We look forward to welcoming London’s most elite PA’s, EA’s, VA’s, Secretaries and Legal Secretaries along with business and administrative professionals. This niche event will be enriched with great content and networking opportunities, with an impressive and carefully selected collection of exhibitors, including venues and corporate gifting. This is the perfect environment to network and source products and services just before Christmas.

What’s on at the show?

This is the third and final article this year on reforms to civil procedure where we will outline the Court’s expanding use of online case management systems.  

The digitisation of County Court processes has been evolving over several years. While the Damages Claims Portal (the Portal) has been described as a “pilot” since 4 April 2022, it has been mandatory for ‘damages only’ claims to be issued digitally by firms.

The saying "the eyes are the window to the soul" is a popular one. According to hiring experts, an interviewer can tell whether you are telling the truth or lying through eye contact, or lack of. Interviewers can often pay a lot of attention to your eyes and body language during an interview. This means that the importance of eye contact in non-verbal communication holds a great deal of importance.  

Eye contact in non-verbal communication.

Eye contact is a form of non-verbal communication that is particularly significant because most individuals rely on their vision more than any other sense. Your gaze might convey a variety of meanings to the person you are looking at, including attention, affection, hatred, or attraction.

Checklists help you stay organised, better prioritise your time and see the “big picture.” They reduce the number of things you must remember, freeing up valuable headspace for the things that really matter. And if someone else needs to fill in for you, they have a step-by-step guide to tell them exactly what they need to do.

A checklist can be as simple or as complicated as it needs to be. Some will only have a handful of tasks on them; others might be pages long. All that matters is that they serve their purpose: making sure everything gets done.

Some people choose a certain career path in life, as they feel that it is their calling. They are naturally gifted in their field and have a passion for what they do. In psychology, this is referred to as self-actualisation. Self-actualised people strive to achieve their highest potential and find meaning in their work. They love what they do and experience great joy in performing their roles. In respect of ILSPA’s Members, they can find their work interesting and rewarding and recognise that they make a significant contribution to their legal departments.

What if you don’t feel like this though? What if your heart is not in it and you don’t know what to do? One solution is to find a new job, of course, but there are ways in which you can change your mindset to feel more positive about your role.

In a previous article on reforms to civil litigation, we looked at the expanding use of fixed costs. This month, we will consider the Civil Justice Council (CJC) review of pre-action protocols.

If you have studied one of our courses covering this area, you may recall that a protocol sets out what must be done in a claim before any legal proceedings commence. There are currently 17 specific protocols in force that apply to a wide range of claims, including:

• Personal injury
• Professional negligence
• Construction disputes
• Housing disrepair
• Defamation
• Package travel and debt claims

Even when there is no specific protocol for a particular type of claim, you are still expected to follow the Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct.