Criminal Law and Practice is not a subject that is included in the Legal Secretaries Diploma course, and the reason for this is that when the course was first devised, it was geared to the most common areas of law that are practiced in the average firm of solicitors, as this would give the student the best chance for finding a job.  However, Criminal Law and Practice is provided by the Institute as a Higher Diploma Course and it is a very interesting area to work in.

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

Team Assistant – Trowers & Hamlins

Location:  Exeter

Salary:  Competitive

Closing Date: 15/08/15

Trowers & Hamlins is a City-led, international and national law firm with 130 partners and over 650 staff located across the UK, Middle East and Far East. With offices in London, Birmingham, Exeter, Manchester, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Dubai, Oman and a representative Regional Office in Kuala Lumpur, we provide a full-service integrated offering.

We are always interested in hearing from talented people. For future Team Assistant vacancies, please feel free to register your CV with us and we will be in touch as and when a suitable position arises.

One of my first secretarial jobs was working in a medium-sized firm with, among others, a lady whom I’ll call Sylvia. Sylvia’s desk was generally an awe-inspiring sight: it groaned with teetering piles of files, Post-It notes were stuck around the computer screen as well as on the desktop, and there were usually a couple of shorthand notebooks open at pages with to-do lists, scribbled in shorthand that only Sylvia could read back. It looked like chaos to everyone else. But Sylvia was always able to find within a couple of minutes whatever document she needed amongst this apparent jumble, and she never seemed to miss a deadline or prioritise tasks wrongly. 

Last month we introduced the world of unbundled legal services. Cutting through the jargon, unbundling is shorthand for how some firms are now providing legal advice for litigation clients with limited financial means.  In this article we will highlight some key points that should be considered when advice is provided in this way and consider how you as a litigation secretary can add value to the process.

To recap, below are some examples of the types of legal services that might be classified as unbundled services and others that fall more into a firm providing a client with full legal representation.

Examples of unbundled services: 

The Court of Protection is the specialist court dealing with the property, money, physical welfare and sometimes even the liberty of those without the mental capacity to make their own decisions. These “protected persons”, usually known in the Court Rules as “P", range from very young children to the very elderly, and the Court’s decisions take in many forms of mental incapacity, from brain damage and severe autism to Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

As announced in the July edition of DEDICATED – The Legal Secretary Journal, the nominations for the Secs in the City PA of the Year Awards 2015 are now open. One of the objectives of ILSPA is to ensure that Legal Secretaries and PAs receive the recognition that their skills and knowledge deserve. We thought that now would be the ideal opportunity to speak to the current Legal PA of the Year, Rachel Newman, and find out how she felt about winning the award last year, why she believes that recognition for Legal PAs is so important, and what tips she has for newer Legal PAs just starting their careers.

Please tell us a little about yourself and your role at Hogan Lovells

‘Title Insurance’, ‘the Protocol’, ‘Transaction’, ‘HIPs’ (Where on earth did they get to?) and now the ‘Conveyancing Portal’. Those of you who work in conveyancing departments will undoubtedly know all about this latest development – the ‘cure all’ for conveyancing ills. But … I wonder.

The portal has been created to speed up the conveyancing process. But it’s not really a new thing – this trying to speed up conveyancing. Once it really took off, there’s been no stopping it. I remember my first introduction to the notion that, to most people, the conveyancing process was somewhat akin to wading through a vat of cold treacle. I remember, as a young lawyer, someone saying to me, “Why does everyone moan about the high Solicitors’ costs for conveyancing but they don’t moan so much about Estate Agents’ fees?”

ILSPA’s Legal Secretaries Diploma course contains a conveyancing unit which is based on residential conveyancing. This article will look at some of the differences in the procedure if you are working for a Commercial Property Lawyer.

Commercial properties can be bought and sold just like domestic properties, but they are also commonly occupied by commercial tenants under a lease. Indeed, most commercial property transactions will involve leasehold property; however, some are freehold.

SecsintheCity, the UK’s #1 job site for PAs, EAs and Secretaries, has announced that nominations are now open for the PA of the Year Awards 2015.

Sponsored by recruitment specialists Tay Associates, the awards recognise the professionalism of PAs and acknowledge their contribution to the organisations they work for, with previous finalists representing leading brands such as Facebook, M&C Saatchi, Ann Summers, Royal Mail and Mercedes.

Nominations can be made through an online nomination form, and are welcomed from PAs and EAs in all sectors, for the following categories:

• PA of the Year
• Interim PA of the Year
• Legal PA of the Year
• Social Media PA of the Year

Emily Penny, head of sales for SecsintheCity, said: “We’re delighted to announce that the PA of the Year Awards ceremony will take place in November 2015.

In a unanimous ruling in March 2015, the Supreme Court agreed that Nadine Montgomery should succeed in her claim against the Lanarkshire Health Board. Nadine had given birth to a boy who developed severe disabilities stemming from complications during the birth in October 1999.

Mrs Montgomery won over £5 million compensation in her major damage suit after her son suffered brain damage due to birth complications, claiming that medical professionals neglected to fully inform her of the risks involved with giving birth as a type 1 diabetic. It is recognised that when diabetics give birth to babies that are larger than average, it puts those mothers at higher risk of complications.