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Job description: Legal secretary
Legal secretaries provide secretarial and administrative support to lawyers and legal executives. If you work in this field you'll be in charge of keeping vital records up to date and for typing up letters and important legal documents.
You'll have additional duties such as answering the phones, filing, organising diaries and making appointments, preparing court forms and sometimes even going to court or the Police cells with solicitors.
You've got a wide range of firms to choose from. Some specialise in corporate or criminal law, while others cover general legal matters including property, divorce and family law.
Beyond solicitors' offices plenty of other organisations need legal secretaries. You could work in barristers' chambers, law courts or even for the police and armed forces, finance houses, insurance companies and estate agents.
Hours and environment
Although lawyers are known to burn the midnight oil, you'll work normal office hours - 9am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday.
The majority of your time will be desk-based, using a computer, but you might have days where you are out and about, delivering documents or attending court or Police cells to take notes.
With plenty of part-time, temp, flexi-time and job share out there, the right job can offer you quite a lot of flexibility if you are not looking to work a standard week.
Skills and interests
There's a clue in the job title about some of the skills you'll need. Secretarial skills are a must. It's even better if you can audio or shorthand type as you'll need to be able to produce documents quickly and accurately to help your firm keep up to date with all its clients.
In addition you'll need to be:
- Computer literate and a good typist
- Discreet
- Good at spelling and grammar
- Able to meet deadlines
- polite and helpful
- Accurate and show good attention to detail
It helps if you are interested in the law as there will be a lot of jargon to get your head around.
Entry
Most employers will ask that you have GSCEs as the minimum entry for the job, although with the right work and office experience this may not always be the case.
Whatever stage you're at with your career, you can improve your CV by taking a secretarial, or better still a legal secretary course.
Training
Most employers will ensure that you get training to help you develop on the job. Usually this will involve learning from experienced staff and studying for a recognised qualification.
There are specialist courses that build on your basic secretarial skills and which will qualify you as a legal secretary. The more recognised courses are:
- The Legal Secretaries Certificate and Legal Secretaries Diploma, run by The Institute of Paralegal Training (IPT)
- Legal Secretaries Certificate and Legal secretaries Diploma, offered by ILEX-City & Guilds
- First and Second Certificates for Legal Secretaries, run by the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry
If you work for a specialist firm then you might be sent on some single-subject certificate course which will help you get up to speed with whichever type of law you need to, from conveyance and family or corporate law.
Opportunities
Once you've got experience there are opportunities to become senior secretary, PA or office manager, but if you work for a smaller firm you might find you need to change jobs to win a more senior role.
If you get the legal bug once you're in the door, you're in a perfect position to branch out in new directions. You can train to become a legal executive, paralegal or licensed conveyance. If you're really keen you could even study for a law degree to become a solicitor or barrister where your understanding of legal speak and the system will really help you in your studies.
The English legal system is separate to the legal systems in Scotland and Europe, but again with the right experience and some training you should be able to move between jurisdictions.
Annual income
You should expect to start on around £12,000 with the potential to earn nearer £17,500 as your experience grows. The top legal secretaries are on around £25,000 to £30,000 per year.
If you work for a firm in one of the main legal centres in the UK - London, Edinburgh, Manchester and Leeds - you could command a bit above the average salary.
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