Paralegal (Costs)

Job Title: Paralegal (Costs)

Location: Northenden, Manchester

Salary: Competitive dependent on experience + Commission

Job type: Permanent, Full time

The Company is a top 200 Law firm that specialises in personal injury. They cover every area of personal injury including public liability, occupier's liability, road traffic accidents, employer's liability, industrial disease, serious injuries and clinical negligence matters.

The Company is LEXCEL and Law Society accredited and is a Legal 500 Leading Firm for both Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence. Six of their Partners are members of the Law Society Specialist Personal Injury Panel and one of them is a member of the Law Society Specialist Clinical Negligence Panel.

They are currently looking for an experienced Costs Draftsperson.

The ideal candidate will possess 1 to 3 years' experience working either in house or for an external supplier of costs drafting services. They will have experience of preparing bill and supplementary documents for Detailed Assessment on multi track cases. The candidate must have a good experience drafting cost budgets and dealing with budget discussions and preparations for Costs and Case Management Hearings.

This is an exciting opportunity with excellent career development prospects for the right candidate, offers great career prospects, as the firm offers training contracts or support through the ACL qualification, for those candidates who prove themselves.

Key Requirements

• Drafting formal bills for Detailed Assessment
• Drafting Budgets
• Attending Budget conference meetings
• Dealing with budget discussions and hearing preparation
• Drafting Instructions to counsel on budget matters
• Budget Revision Work

The Candidate:

Essential Skills

• 2 year's multi track personal injury claimant costs experience.
• Completion of a legal qualification (LLB, GDL, LPC)
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Drafting skills associated with completing Precedent H, R and Q and finalising Red line bills
• Experience of dealing with post CCMC work on behalf of the Claimant
• Experience of holding budget discussions
• Experience of working to target
• You will have a flexible approach, and be able to respond to rapid changes in working schedules and priorities. For this you will need to be organised and able to communicate clearly with people at all levels.
• Applicants should be committed and hardworking individuals who enjoy operating in a pressurised and highly motivated team environment. You will be able to demonstrate the ability to work on your own initiative with the minimum of supervision.
• Knowledge of time recording procedures
• Working knowledge of the Civil Procedures Rules and Detailed Assessment process.
• Analytical skills and attention to detail are essential.
• The Candidate must consistently produce work which is highly accurate and well-presented.
• The role involves the use of IT systems and therefore computer literacy, including a working knowledge of Microsoft Office packages, is essential.

Desirable Skills

• Experience of using Proclaim Case Management System and Costs Master software.
• Experience of working in house.

Benefits:

The company always endeavour to recruit and retain the best staff around. To do so they offer competitive remuneration packages, ongoing training and development opportunities and a wide variety of interesting and challenging work. Additionally, they also offer the following incentives:

• Salary - generous basic depending on experience plus commission.
• 20 days holiday, rising 1 day per year to a max of 23 days, plus bank/public hols. In addition the office is closed between Christmas and New Year and you are not required to use your holiday entitlement for this period
• 3 holiday buy backs per year after 1 year of service
• Private medical insurance available after 2 years' service
• Death In Service - 2 x salary based on annual salary only - eligibility commences when you join the company
• Active social committee, firm pays for trips to e. Bowling, Chester Races, Christmas party, Summer Barbecue
• Employee Assistance Programme which offers 24 hour helpline, Legal info and CBT - available immediately
• Free fruit delivered twice a week

Please click on the APPLY button to send your CV and Cover Letter for this role.

Candidates with the relevant experience or job titles of; Costs Paralegal, Costs Litigation Assistant, Costs Draftsperson, Costs Draftsman, Legal Executive, Legal Support Assistant, Law Graduate, Paralegal, Legal Assistant, Legal Executive, Legal Handler, Legal Secretary, Family Law Paralegal, Paralegal, Legal Aid will also be considered for this role.