Departmental Assistant

The firm

Lewis Silkin works with leading businesses to protect and enhance their most important assets - their ideas, their people, their brand and their future. We call it: Ideas. People. Possibilities.

With offices in London, Oxford, Manchester, Leeds, Cardiff, Belfast, Dublin and Hong Kong, we are recognised by clients and industry alike as being distinct for our unique culture, market-leading practice areas, sector focused approach and for providing solutions to complex, multijurisdictional business challenges, with a pragmatic and human touch. We have two things at our core: people — both ours and our clients’— and a focus on creative, tech and innovative businesses.

Our culture is encapsulated by an ethos of bravery and kindness, guided by our values of Integrity, Clarity, Unity and Excellence (our ‘I-CUE’). We aim to provide a supportive environment for our people, clients and wider community and embrace diversity & inclusion, ensuring people are able to bring their full selves to work.

The department

The Employment, Immigration, Reward Division is one of the leading employment law practices in the UK and consistently top ranked by independent legal directories. We have more recognised experts in employment than any other UK firm. With over 150 lawyers, Lewis Silkin’s employment and immigration team offers an unrivalled service supporting clients, including many of the world’s leading businesses, on their HR, employment and immigration law needs domestically and internationally.

Responsibilities

The overall objective of this role is to provide excellent administrative support to the Immigration team with a view to ensuring that individual tasks should be completed cost-effectively and at the appropriate level.

Sound, thorough and accurate administrative support is critical to the running of many of the key activities undertaken by the team and so this role is an integral part of the success of the Immigration function as a whole.

The jobholder will provide administrative support and assistance to the Immigration team and assist the Employment, Immigration, Reward division as required.

Key Responsibilities

• General administrative tasks, including but not limited to: opening and distributing immigration post, photocopying, printing and scanning, answering the telephone and dealing with queries/taking messages and liaising with Post Room when needed to arrange couriers and other delivery methods as required.
• Opening new clients/matters and drafting retainers.
• Ensuring the safe keeping of client documents.
• Assisting with maintenance of databases and the firm’s CRM system (Visa collection, Expiry Tracker and HighQ Extranet Sites).
• Assisting with booking travel using our travel booking system.
• Arranging for disbursements, when received from third parties, to be put onto the system, ensuring they are put onto the relevant matter.
• Assisting with other financial forms and processes as and when needed (i.e. receipt forms, immediate payment forms etc).
• Assisting with locating and tracking complex immigration disbursements.
• Liaising regularly with the Immigration team regarding tracking of ECCTIS usage, renewals and ensuring disbursements have been logged.
• Archiving files with the use of the Elite management system and FileTrack.
• Processing expenses.
• Providing general assistance to the team as requested.
• Assisting the other Departmental Assistant(s)/Secretaries and if necessary, providing holiday cover.
• Supporting the Secretaries by helping to pick up overflow tasks.
• Assisting with new work enquiries received via the Firm’s external website.
• Any other reasonable request made of the job holder, in line with the level and experience of the role.
  
  

Candidate profile

The successful candidate must have excellent communication skills, with stakeholders at all levels, and enjoy working in a team environment. They must be highly organised; have a flexible nature and a co-operative and willing attitude and be looking to be a critical part of the ongoing success of the team.

Specialist Experience

• Previous demonstrable experience of office/administrative work.
• Knowledge of Immigration processes would be preferred but not essential.
  
  

Abilities And Desired Qualities

• Excellent attention to detail.
• Excellent organisational skills and the ability to effectively prioritise workload as needed.
• Ability to communicate at all levels.
• Ability to meet deadlines and work under pressure.
  
  

IT Skills Required

• Experience or knowledge of Office 365, Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, DocsCorp PDF Docs, Word Compare (DocsCorp CompareDocs), Document Management System (Netdocs), although full in house training will be provided.
  
  

Educational And Professional Qualifications Required

• Good grammatical English - at least to GCSE standard or equivalent.
  
  

Additional information

At Lewis Silkin our ethos is simple. We strive to do the best for our clients, our people and the communities in which we operate. We recognise that an inclusive workplace allows for all kinds of ideas and thoughts, a variety of points of view that can trigger discussions or deliver innovative results, and a wide range of versatile skills and expertise. We are proud of the diversity within Lewis Silkin and of our culture that allows people to be themselves at work, ensuring we provide the best possible service to our clients. We are committed to finding the right person for this role and are open to discussing flexible working patterns and office location.

Seniority level

• Entry level

Employment type

• Full-time

Job function

• Administrative
• Industries
• Law Practice