A Legal Assistant is a key cog in the legal industry, providing support to Lawyers and working alongside them by performing important administrative and clerical duties. They are required to have a strong knowledge of legal terms, procedures and documentation. Our partner, Simply Law, recently spoke to Alia Choudhury, a Legal Assistant at Keller Lenkner, and found out more about her role and what she does each day.

Introducing Alia Choudhury

I am a Legal Assistant working at a multi-claimant US legal firm specialising in commercial, employment and consumer class action litigation. Prior to this role, I had studied my LLB at Liverpool John Moores University, from which I graduated this summer with a 2.1.

If you are studying ILSPA’s Legal Secretaries Diploma course or a Single Subject Foundation course, you will need to complete practical assessments in respect of your coursework. These assessments are designed to help you develop the practical skills of a Legal Secretary in various legal departments. Students need to successfully complete their practical assessments to gain a qualification. You will see that some of the assessments are straightforward, whilst others may need extra attention. Luckily for our students, our Course Assessor, Maria Richards, is always on hand to offer help and guidance whenever it is needed.

Throughout the past year, the legal job market has come under immense pressure and experienced numerous challenges as a result of the pandemic. Despite this, the legal profession has shown remarkable resilience.

Take a look around your workspace. Is it organised or a disaster area? Can you quickly and easily find things? Are there any items that are just taking up space?

In honour of National Clean Off Your Desk Day, it’s a great time to take a critical look at your workspace. Follow these three steps to make it a more productive area!

1. Create workspace zones. There are three zones you need to think about as you clear the clutter and put systems in place for staying organised. The three zones are:

• Zone 1: Prime Workspace. Zone 1 is the main workspace at your desk – the centre of activity that is within arm’s reach of your computer and phone.

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

Legal Assistant/Secretary – Moore Barlow     

Location: Guildford

Salary: Competitive    

Are you a reliable and highly organised individual looking to work for a newly merged firm carving out a new way of working within the Legal sector? This is a great role for someone ambitious looking to get really involved in a great Commercial Property team where you will be fully supported.

View the full job description here:           

https://www.institutelegalsecretaries.com/jobs/candidate/job/192979/

Legal Secretary – Eversheds Sutherland (Luxemburg) LLP

Location: Luxemburg

“We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our to-do list.”

– Michelle Obama

The PA Show is the largest gathering of Executive Support Professionals in the UK, bringing together thousands of members of the community under one roof.

For over 10 years the community has come together to learn, share and connect at The PA Show, which has CPD-accredited content across the two days applying to Executive Support Professionals at every stage of their career and budget.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought with it so many changes, many of which occurred almost overnight. One of the largest that has impacted almost all of us has been remote working. For some, this was temporary, but for many of us, this is the new normal, and with offices unlikely to return to 100% capacity in the future, embracing a remote working style is crucial for us all.

In the early part of any career, a lot of time is spent learning the skills, obtaining the knowledge and adopting the behaviours expected. This is certainly the case with Solicitors as they spend years (at least six if not more) reaching the required standard. By studying ILSPA’s Legal Secretaries Diploma course, you will have started the journey to competence in the legal profession.

When you start working within the legal environment, you are taking the next of many further steps in your learning journey. How your employer helps you with your continuing professional development (CPD) will vary, but the standard for any legal employer will be the same – continuing professional competence.

On 18 November 2021, SecsintheCity – the UK’s only dedicated job site for business support professionals – hosted the 10th annual PA of the Year Awards.

These awards celebrate the successes and accomplishments of Personal Assistants, Executive Assistants and Office Managers from the past year. For the second year running, the PA of the Year Awards were held virtually, but that didn’t stop attendees from turning out in the event’s traditional black-tie attire.

Breanna Worton – a Legal PA working at global law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and winner of the Legal PA of the Year Award at this year’s event – took the time to answer some questions about her career, winning this accolade and what it means to her.

For many years now, the team at Heat Recruitment in Bristol have been collating retrospective analytical data from their in-house software systems. This allows them to create a comparative salary data set across all the sectors that they work in, including legal. This year, they have decided to formalise this data and make it more widely available in the form of their 2022 Salary Survey.

To give enhanced context and insight to their Salary Survey, they asked their Associate Directors to give their key take-aways and perspectives from the year in business, and to reflect on the hiring trends that they foresee continuing to impact the market in the year ahead. Dan Hazzard, Associate Director of Legal, had the following key take-outs for the legal sector.