Assistant (Legal Secretary) / Receptionist

Assistant (Legal Secretary) / Receptionist

Secretarial, Brussels

Main information

Term type:

Permanent

Department:

Secretarial

Location:

Brussels

The firm

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP is one of the world’s leading international law firms. The Firm was established in 1884 and has more than 2,000 lawyers. Headquartered in New York with offices in Beijing, Boston, Brussels, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Luxembourg. Palo Alto, San Francisco, São Paulo, Singapore, Tokyo and Washington, D.C., the Firm provides coordinated legal advice and transactional capability to clients around the globe.

Description/Job Summary

Providing a high level and proactive secretarial support to an allocation of Partners and Associates in the Brussels office. In addition, this will involve the smooth running of front of house service and effective telephone, reception and hospitality service to internal and external clients and visitors of the Firm.

Responsibilities/Duties

General

• Acting as gatekeeper for lawyers with Inbox/Diary management as required; answering telephone calls, directing as appropriate and providing accurate information.
• Assisting with lawyer time recording.
• Booking lawyer travel, domestic and international.
• Amending, converting and formatting documents; processing mark-ups.
• Document photocopying, scanning, printing.
• Supporting with submission of invoices and expenses in Chrome River.
• Maintaining archives and storage of information in iManage.
• Liaising with assistants in London and US offices.
• Providing general support to the Brussels office.

Matter Management and Input

• Assisting with the opening of new matters, conflict checks, liaising with the client engagement team.
• Drafting and sending regular WIP updates to clients on live matters.
• Drafting, seeking approval for and issuing invoices to clients on live matters.
• Producing detailed narratives to be sent with invoices.
• Drafting emails to clients in relation to billing for fee earners when required.
• Liasing with the Billing team.

Reception

• Daily running of the reception function. Welcoming visitors and offering beverages.
• Ordering couriers and taxis.
• Arranging internal and client meetings to include conference room booking set-up and ordering lunches where required.
• Ordering and restocking stationery, kitchen, and office supplies.
• Maintaining the tidiness and presentation of reception and conference rooms.
• Providing temporary badges to visitors and maintaining the temporary badge log.

Required Skills

• Experience working in a legal firm is essential.
• Strong organisational skills.
• Professional and courteous manner, building and maintaining effective working relationships.
• Excellent communication skills with lawyers, clients and other business services staff in multiple time zones (Asia, Europe, Americas).
• Knowledge of MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook; iManage is essential.
• A certificate or diploma in a secretarial course level BAC+3 is preferable.
• Ability to turn around documents swiftly but thoroughly.
• Experience with automatic paragraph numbering.
• Flexibility to do overtime as and when required.
• Ability to work alone as well as have the ability to work well with others.
• Language skills: Very good English.
• Desirable: Fluency in French and/or Dutch.

Details

Salary and Benefits: Competitive

Simpson Thacher is committed to being a Firm where everyone can reach their full potential, irrespective of background, identity or circumstance. We recognise that in order to be successful we need to attract, retain and develop diverse talent at all levels. This means recruiting from the widest possible pool of talent and fostering a collegial environment which maximises collaboration and empowers everyone at Simpson Thacher to bring their whole selves to work. If there is anything we can do to accommodate you to participate fully in the recruitment or interview process, please let us know by emailing List-LondonRecruitment@lists.stblaw.com .