Practice Assistant in Private Equity

Company Description

Clifford Chance is one of the world's leading law firms, helping clients achieve their goals by combining the highest global standards with local expertise. The firm has unrivalled scale and depth of legal resources across the three key markets of the Americas, Asia and Europe and focuses on the core areas of commercial activity: capital markets; corporate and M&A; finance and banking; real estate; tax, pensions and employment; and litigation and dispute resolution.

Alongside world-class legal careers, Clifford Chance offers excellent opportunities in the support functions that underpin its business operations. By joining us in the Business Professionals team, you will help us innovate in the way we deliver our services and enable us to run a successful multinational business that never stands still. Business Professionals are integral to the running of the firm and are critical to its success.

We expect you to aspire to deliver the highest standards of customer care to your colleagues, both fee-earning and otherwise. You will strive to make every interaction with your area of service as easy as possible, proactively anticipating requirements, suggesting solutions and removing friction, wherever it arises. You will take personal responsibility for ensuring that any service issues are resolved as quickly as possible and will take full ownership of these issues, permitting the people you are allocated to support to concentrate on looking after our clients. You will support our shared success model, recognising that exceptional client service relies on us all succeeding, both individually and as a team.

The Role 

We are currently recruiting for 2 Practice Assistants in our Private Equity group. 

The Practice Assistant is accountable for providing professional core business support to the firm's fee earners. The support provided will be as part of a team with shared responsibilities and collective accountability, working with the firm's other Business Professionals teams. The Practice Assistant is expected to create positive working relationships with fee earners and their colleagues in order to provide excellent business support. The Practice Assistant is accountable for ensuring that all activities are carried out in compliance with the firm's policies and regulatory requirements.

The Practice Assistant must be flexible and adaptable, with the ability to adjust to different practice areas and teams, as required.

Job Description

This role sits within the London office and includes responsibility for delegating and steering work to the appropriate specialist CC team, which may include the Service Centre, DPU, Design and other Business Professionals teams. The Practice Assistant is accountable for providing clear direction and taking full ownership and management of their work to ensure that tasks are prioritised by business need and completed in a timely manner. When working agilely, the Practice Assistant is expected to provide a consistently excellent level of support without disruption to the business and stakeholders.

Practice Management

• Acting as a key point of contact and taking full responsibility for incoming queries, both internally and externally, via phone or email: full inbox management, pre-empting requirements, sending holding emails, drafting or providing responses, filing and archiving, prioritising and actioning, as well as screening calls, answering queries, taking messages and directing enquiries to the appropriate CC teams, as necessary
• Managing diaries: organising meetings across different time zones, coordinating meeting requirements, including room bookings, managing diary conflicts, preparation for meetings, including necessary documentation, liaising with internal and external attendees on availability, and organising catering
• Providing full support on video conferencing using CC supported applications: setting up appropriate file management systems, filing emails and documents, archiving and other document management activities such as filing, photocopying, scanning, printing and storing, and arranging couriers
• Arranging domestic and international travel: visas, vaccinations, currency, flights, hotels, maps, client information, itineraries and liaising with our in-house travel provider, as required
• Preparing and drafting: letters, email correspondence, pitch and presentation documentation with direction and input from the people you support
• Owning and coordinating the set-up of remote and physical data rooms
• Assisting Partners with trainee and lawyer administration: scheduling meetings for trainee mid/end of seat and lawyer appraisals, preparing relevant paperwork, reminding Partners to complete paperwork within time frames, assisting with paperwork completion on the appraisal system
• Managing beginning-to-end document management processes: amending, collating PDFs and renaming, proofreading, generic blacklining and liaising with specialist CC teams, including DPU, Service Centre, Legal Support Centre, Newcastle, as appropriate
• Assisting with the integration of new joiners into the team, general guidance on firm processes, arranging any equipment and ensuring full workstation set-up, scheduling introduction meetings with key personnel outside HR induction, providing general advice on queries and acting as a buddy
• Encouraging and proactively following up with fee earners on completion of their mandatory training requirements, other course requirements and ensuring that they are adhering to risk and compliance policies, such as Matter Team Manager (MTM) compliance and engagement letter compliance
• Participating in the delivery of ad hoc responsibilities, projects and tasks; for example, but not limited to, room moves, absence and holiday coordination and IT initiatives
• Providing guidance to Team Assistants and Junior Practice Assistants in support of their ongoing development.

Client Focus and Support

• Progressing and assisting with client relationship initiatives: arranging and attending meetings, calls or other associated actions, as required
• Reminding and assisting fee earners with the updating of CVs
• Creating or amending PowerPoint presentations, Excel documents or fee quote documentation to an intermediate level. This will include involving specialist CC teams, as necessary, and ensuring that presentations/ documents/pitches are delivered to both fee earners and Business Professionals (including the Client and Market Development team) as per their initial brief
• Building relationships with internal and external clients and key stakeholders, as appropriate, and maintaining knowledge of matters from inception to completion for allocated fee earners
• Collating and capturing the correct client and matter-related information in the core systems: Intapp and the Matter Capture System (MIS); for example, sector information in Intapp and deal description information in MIS
• Organising and attending events: internal and external client and team events, socials, O2 events, retreats and deal-closing lunches and dinners, together with any associated tasks such as researching venues, invitations, collating RSVPs, drafting communications and event management, as required
• Carrying out research tasks to support fee earners and Business Professionals: researching venues for events and gathering client intelligence for marketing (including working with the GSSC team to produce taxi briefings prior to client meetings and events and adding client activities, as requested), capability statements and pitch materials, as directed
• Supporting client and market development teams with client relationship activities: cross-practice client events, maintaining and updating client contact information on Interaction, including mailing lists, RSVPs and registration.

Financial and Matter Management

• Providing financial management support from inception through to billing: supporting the firm's commercial discipline initiatives such as conflict checking, drafting engagement letters, using Intapp and ensuring that fee estimates and phases are included, setting up MTM and ensuring that the relevant team members are added, setting up and maintaining project email distribution lists, setting up Document Management System workspaces with appropriate folder structure, including creating a legal project management (LPM) folder with relevant project templates, if required, setting up matter balance reports and ensuring that all relevant information is included, creating and informing the deal team of any time recording rules, taking account of specific client e-billing rules and sending regular reminders to the deal team, amending narratives as required, including sharing further guidance with the team to reduce errors, and drafting bill letters
• Processing and managing all expenses and invoices in a timely manner, including for third parties, and liaising with Accounts Payable, when required
• Keeping track of updates to pre-bills, and ensuring smooth running and preparation of bills
• Attending work in progress (WIP) and debtor meetings, as required, and following up on action points with the Billing team
• Supporting fee earners with Time Sheet entries: proactively inputting holidays and absences, resolving unposted time and managing held time
• Providing support and guidance on Expert Time
• Drafting emails and taking responsibility for sending client matter updates on WIP and debts
• Assisting with good housekeeping of documentation, including post-closing administration.

Best Delivery

• Providing guidance on the firm's processes and best practices, including changes to policies and procedures, and guidance on the firm's systems and Best Delivery tools
• Encouraging use of the firm's Best Delivery hubs and having knowledge of the Best Delivery tools to provide efficient support to the fee-earning community.

Skills 

• Exceptional organisational skills with excellent attention to detail
• Understands the importance of the role and how this contributes to the practice area and wider firm strategy
• Client orientated with proven experience of building strong relationships both internally and externally
• Ability to manage work activity, ensuring work is distributed and delegated as appropriate (whilst maintaining oversight and ownership) and utilising support functions efficiently, taking the initiative and making decisive decisions autonomously
• Excellent communication skills, both written and oral
• Aware of confidentiality and the use of discretion, when required

Experience 

• Previous experience of working within a professional services firm an advantage
• Experience of complex diary management, international travel, email management and assisting with the preparation of correspondence on behalf of stakeholder
• Supporting new business, client or business development teams with pitches, events, marketing materials and client research
• Proven experience of supporting on financial matters, i.e. knowledge of recording time sheets, e-billing, expenses and invoices.

Knowledge 

• Intermediate to advanced knowledge of Word, Outlook, Excel and PowerPoint
• Experience of setting up data rooms would be an advantage
• Knowledge of legal processes and matter management is desirable
• Knowledge of any of the following would be an advantage, but not essential: Intapp, Expert Time and time reporting systems, Interaction, Kira and Transact.

Education

• 5 (A*-C/9-4) GCSEs, including English and Mathematics
• Cilex or BTEC Administration qualifications are desirable, but not essential.

Additional Information

Hybrid working

Due to the nature of this role, office attendance is required for more than our 'balanced' hybrid working policy. The expectation for this role is to be working in the office for a minimum of 60% of your time. Please see our careers site for further information on our working environment.

Equal Opportunities

It is the firm's policy to treat all employees and job applicants fairly and equally regardless of their gender, marital or civil partnership status, race, colour, national or ethnic origin, social or economic background, disability, religious belief, sexual orientation or age. Furthermore, the firm will ensure that no requirement or condition will be imposed without justification that could disadvantage individuals purely on any of the above grounds.

The policy applies to recruitment and selection and terms and conditions of employment, including pay, promotion, training, transfer and every other aspect of employment.

The firm will regularly review its procedures and selection criteria to ensure that individuals are selected, promoted and otherwise treated according to their relevant individual abilities and merits.

The firm is committed to the implementation of this policy and to a programme of action to ensure that the policy is, and continues to be, fully effective. All staff are required to comply with the policy and to act in accordance with its objectives so as to remove any barriers to equal opportunity. Any act of discrimination by employees or any failure to comply with the terms of the policy will result in disciplinary action.