Our IP Disputes team is seeking a Junior PA to support the PA team with administrative tasks and billing processes to a very busy team. You'll provide a high level of support to a team of fee earners including the Service Line leader. This is an exciting opportunity for an individual seeking a new challenge in an exciting and busy environment.
This is 12 month fixed term position, with working hours of 9.30am-5.30pm, based out of our London office, although we are happy to consider some home working for this position too.
The team
The team you will be supporting advises intellectual property holders to manage, enforce, protect and exploit rights across a range of creative industries. The team has a specific focus on IP matters in the tech, media and communications, retail, automotive and life sciences sectors. We have specific expertise in digital copyright and patent matters and have acted in several cases involving the communication and distribution rights in the digital sphere.
We act for a broad range of clients, from leading businesses to innovative start-ups, including cutting-edge games developers, price-comparison sites, newspaper publishers, retailers and internet service providers, helping them make the most of their copyright and database rights. We have particular experience in online content distribution, advising on new technologies and the liability and obligations of online intermediaries.
What you'll do
Key Responsibilities:
- Develop strong working relationships with the team to anticipate, mitigate and resolve potential billing issues or concerns.
- Proactively manage and organise all billing guides for the team into client groupings and save within each matter manager's zip folder of billing guides.
- Produce and export to excel monthly work in progress reports for all fee earners within the team and send them to the relevant matter manager along with their respective billing guides.
- Liaising with the PAs attend work in progress meetings with fee earners to discuss their billing needs to ensure all billing is processed by month end.
- Build a good working relationship with the Billing Request team (in Finance) and liaise directly with them to provide clear instructions on approved billing guides so the Billing Request team can create accurate bills and organise any write-offs that need actioning.
- Quality check all PDF bills received from the Billing Request Team to ensure all elements of the bill are correct and ensure all bills are sent to the clients in accordance with the correct process for each individual client.
- Regularly check all client contact details, billing information and billing rates are correct and ensure all changes have been updated and are accurate.
- Support the PAs and FEs as and when necessary with administrative tasks such as diary management, travel arrangements, printing and bundles
Additional responsibilities are:
- Role model flexibility and openness to change; be decisive, responsible and take ownership of tasks
- Work closely with the Disputes & Risk practice management team to improve team efficiencies, communications, management of work-in-progress and any roll-out of IT applications and improved working practices
- Support and assist the Operations Manager and our Senior PA Resource Coordinator in the development and effectiveness of administrative working practices and efficiencies
Who we are looking for:
We are looking for someone with strong administration experience and a proactive work ethic. The position requires someone who is able to use their own initiative, have first class organisation skills and be an integral team player. You'll also be able to demonstrate:
- An enthusiastic, proactive and positive approach
- The ability to work under pressure with little supervision
- Excellent time and performance management
- The ability to pay close attention to detail
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Confidentiality, flexibility, discretion and diplomacy
- Excellent IT skills (Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
Salary and benefits
We offer competitive salaries and generous benefits. We value the health and wellbeing of our people and our wide range of initiatives and benefits support this.
Our recruitment process
We welcome direct applications for our opportunities - if you would like any further information about this role or the firm, we would be delighted to hear from you. Please contact, in complete confidence, Tim Jenkins (Recruitment Advisor) on 0117 917 3666 or email tim.jenkins@osborneclarke.com.
Please note that although we include closing dates for our roles as a guide, we review and progress applications on a rolling basis. At Osborne Clarke we do not make any recruitment decisions using automated decision-making.
We are committed to providing an environment where you can perform to the best of your abilities at every stage of your recruitment experience and beyond. If you require any adjustments to be made during the application stage, interview process, or when working with us, please let us know in confidence.