Contentious Probate Administrator

Are you experienced Administrator and interested in developing a great career and looking for a new challenge?

If so we’d love to hear from you!

What we can offer you....

• A culture of trust and empowerment with responsibility and autonomy over your work and the freedom to manage when and how you do it
• The support and encouragement of a great team behind you and friendly partners who all want to help you thrive
• Exposure to excellent development and collaboration within your team
• A competitive package with amazing benefits!

The Opportunity:

We have a new opportunity for an enthusiastic and dedicated individual to join our growing Contentious Probate team as an Administrator.

Whilst government advice remains to work from home where possible, your role will be home-based.

If government advice changes, then this role can be based in one of our Midlands offices.

We envisage a blend of home-working and office based work going forward and occasional travel to our other offices may also be required.

You will work independently and as part of a team to provide solid administrative support to help our busy legal team deliver a great service to our clients.

Key Responsibilities:

• opening and closing electronic files
• preparing court bundles and collating documents
• using a case management system to process and progress cases
• taking telephone calls and messages, handling queries and enquiries
• photocopying, scanning, faxing, printing, filing and collating documentation
• archiving, storing and retrieving documentation
• typing documents and drafting routine administration correspondence
• processing incoming and outgoing post and arranging couriers
• managing diaries for the team, booking appointments and making travel arrangements
• assisting with financial administration, including:
• liaising with finance team
• processing cheque requests and expenses
• preparing and despatching invoices
• collecting payments
• maintaining data on Excel spreadsheets
• liaising with clients and organising meetings

Meet the team:

Our Contentious Probate team specialise in contentious trusts and probate which includes disputes over wills, financial provision claims, disputes with executors, disputes regarding powers of attorney and contested Court of Protection applications.

We pride ourselves on our technical expertise and resources to deliver the best possible solutions for our clients, ranging from large household names and multi-million pound turnover companies to individuals and small owner managed businesses.

Skills and experience you will have:

• a minimum of 6 month’s previous office administrative experience, ideally in a legal environment
• a legal qualification (or equivalent) is not essential but advantageous
• a minimum grade C pass at GCSE (or equivalent) in English Language and Mathematics
• confidence with IT systems to include Microsoft Word and Excel
• a good basic keyboard ability
• demonstrable strong telephony skills

Key competencies you will need:

• the confidence and self-sufficiency to work autonomously in a currently agile working environment
• the ability to work well in a team and develop good working relationships with colleagues and others
• good communication skills with the confidence to liaise openly and clearly with colleagues and clients
• the ability to produce a high standard of work, sometimes under pressure, whilst maintaining accuracy and strong attention to detail
• to be able to demonstrate flexibility, initiative and confidence in your own ability

Want to know more about us?

It’s the people at Shakespeare Martineau that make us so special.

By understanding what our people want, giving them the support they need, recognising everyone’s contribution and realising the unique power of teams, together we win.

As a firm we are focused on proactively building and developing diverse teams, bringing different backgrounds, personalities and perspectives together.

We play to our strengths, pushing ourselves to be consistently better than yesterday and deliver amazing solutions for our clients.

We empower our teams with a high degree of individual responsibility; we self-manage and encourage everyone to be responsible for their own learning, knowing it makes us even better at what we do!

We believe in trusting our people to make the right decisions for themselves, from when and where you work, to how you dress; we focus on outputs.

How we work

We embrace agile working and offer a blended approach to where and how we work.

We appreciate that people have different needs and preferences and we’re keen to be flexible, after all, we value what you do, not where you do it.

We have hubs in Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Leicester, London, Lincoln, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Solihull, Stratford-upon-Avon and Sheffield.

This role will be predominantly home based with travel as required into Birmingham or one of our other Midlands hubs

Our standard office hours are Monday – Thursday 9.

00am to 5.

30pm and Friday 9.

00am – 5.

00pm.

Due to the nature of this role candidates will need to be flexible in terms of working hours; in addition to our standard hours cover will be required during evenings and weekends.

Additional information

Please be aware, for some vacancies, where we receive high numbers of applications we may need to bring the close date forward.

Due to the nature of the work undertaken, confirmation of employment will be subject to a variety of checks which will be carried out once an offer of employment is accepted.

Details of the checks can be found here.

Equal opportunities

Shakespeare Martineau is a committed equal opportunities employer.

We seek to attract, develop and retain talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures.

We value and respect individuality and encourage a culture within our business where people can be themselves and be valued for their strengths and experiences.

Everyone who either applies to or works for the firm is treated equally, regardless of their gender, age, ethnic origin, nationality, marital status, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.