Practice Support Manager

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At Brodies LLP, we value and respect all colleagues as individuals. As a UK law firm headquartered in Scotland, we believe that the experiences and perspectives of a diverse workforce that reflects our communities, and the clients we serve, allows us to see the world through many lenses.

As the largest firm in our jurisdiction measured by income, directory rankings, and lawyer numbers, the progress we continue to make is testament to the commitment of our colleagues.

In the last three years, our firm's revenue has grown by 20%, and we have welcomed almost 100 new colleagues. Today, we have more than 800 colleagues and offices in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, London, Abu Dhabi and Brussels.

JOB TITLE

Practice Support Manager - Real Estate - 12 months fixed term contract

Based in Edinburgh or Glasgow with frequent travel across the central belt, to Aberdeen & Inverness

REPORTING TO

Secretarial Engagement Manager (SEM)

JOB PURPOSE

The primary responsibility of the Real Estate Practice Support Manager (PSM) is to deliver effective and efficient operational and administrative support to the Real Estate practice area. This service will be predominantly delivered via the Executive Assistants and Legal Document Secretaries, Secretarial Support Assistants and Senior Executive Assistant line managed by the PSM. The Secretarial Engagement Manager (SEM) is the line manager of the PSM and has overall responsibility for the secretarial function.

CORE TASKS

• Provide line management to and have responsibility for the secretarial colleagues supporting the Real Estate practice area. This includes providing advice, support, guidance and coaching to team members, encouraging a collaborative and cohesive team environment both within the secretarial team and across the wider Real Estate practice area.
• Work closely with the partners and legal services colleagues in the practice area to develop a robust understanding of their needs, identify opportunities to improve service levels and productivity, building appropriate plans to support delivery and address any challenges. Have a continual focus on having processes and resource in place to ensure administrative and other relevant non chargeable tasks are undertaken by the secretarial team and not legal services colleagues.
• Identify skills and expertise required to deliver an effective service. Work with team members to assess any skills gaps or training needs, partnering with the relevant teams in People Engagement and I&T and Finance to address any gaps and implement relevant training programmes.
• Adopt a continuous improvement mindset, identifying opportunities for process improvement (particularly in relation to technology) and enhanced service delivery and encouraging others to do the same.
• Work with the partners and legal services colleagues in the practice area to understand and address, update and monitor processes or activities required for risk management purposes including but not limited to storage of principal documents, client opening & KYC processes, updating the key dates database, distribution of mail etc.
• Communicate regularly and clearly with the legal team and the Snr EA with regards to resource and support including holidays and sickness absence.
• Responsible for line management activities including 3-month reviews, performance reviews and appraisals.
• Plan for resource needs and undertake recruitment in conjunction with the SEM.
• Partner with People Engagement to address any performance, absence or wellbeing issues within the team.
• Monitor unplanned absence and emergency/dependent leave. Ensure legal services colleagues are aware of absences (whether planned or unplanned) and that resource is in place to cover, ensuring consistency of service.
• Monitor and approve overtime and TOIL requests.
• Training of new and existing secretarial colleagues in a timely manner, develop standard and, as required, bespoke, training plans, develop and monitor ongoing training for colleagues.
• Ensure secretarial colleagues have ongoing training including specifically aderant, Word 10 ,bundledocs, data rooms, Registers of Scotland forms, searches and all other relevant technologies and tools.
• Manage the legal services allocations within the Real Estate team, collaborating with the Snr EA in Real Estate, including for any new joiners (secretarial colleagues and legal services colleagues). Update the BigHand server and colleague directory with any new joiners/changes to allocations.
• Be aware of Brodies' information security policies, and protect information assets from unauthorised access, disclosure, modification, destruction or interference at all times.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

• Highly experienced line manager and Executive Assistant/Personal Assistant.
• Strong communicator with the ability to build relationships and influence colleagues at all levels across the firm.
• Self-motivated.
• Resilient
• Ability to work through ambiguity to identify core issues, putting in place plans to address
• Expectation setting & management
• Ability to work under pressure, often with tight deadlines.
• Proactive in problem solving.
• Ability to effectively communicate (both verbally and written) at all levels to achieve positive outcomes, with a demonstrated ability to persuasively facilitate opposing views.
• Flexible in adapting your working style.
• Ability to work independently, with minimal day to day instruction and supervision.
• Ability to quickly understand / adapt to change and conflicting priorities of stakeholders.
• Ability to multitask and prioritise.
• Actively support the Firm's vision and strategies including embracing and promoting change and communicating and executing on challenging decisions.

SKILLS

• Excellent in the use of Microsoft applications:
  
  • Word - track changes/mail merge.
  • Outlook - diary management, contacts, tasks.
  • Excel.
  • PowerPoint.
• Experience and understanding of Cashroom procedures and interpretation of financial information on Aderant.
• Experience of DMS (essential).
• Experience of Bighand (essential).