Paralegal

Job purpose

We are looking for a full time (5 days per week) property paralegal who has strong analytical skills and excellent attention to detail.

The role will involve working across a number of key areas of property work, acting mainly for Welsh Registered Social Landlords.

We are looking for someone with a keen interest in property, a positive attitude, a willingness to learn and the ability to develop their knowledge and skills quickly. The successful candidate will be proactive, organised, and keen to contribute to the team.

An important part of the role is to provide support and assistance to the Partner and Solicitor in the team.

The team

Real Estate (and particularly real estate development) is at the heart of Devonshires’ business, as it is for the major part of our client base. Within the Team, there are 18 dedicated partners working on a wide variety of property transactions with a broad range of clients from registered providers of social housing and care homes, through to private developers, acting on sites and developments from a handful of units to thousands to portfolio and street property acquisitions and disposals.

Duties and responsibilities

Providing support to the other fee earners within the team including but not limited to:

• Reviewing and reporting on title documentation;
• Undertake Land registration formalities;
• Completion of LTT (Land Transaction Land Tax) returns;
• Drafting Reports on title and Certificates of Title;
• Reporting on key documents;
• Proof documents and information;
• Assist in the day-to-day administration of files;
• Dealing with enquiries and chasing paperwork where necessary;
• Provide clients with regular progress reports as and when required;
• Efficiently manage a large number of deadlines relating to a variety of cases at any one time;
• Organise and maintain tidy and accurate files both in hard copy and electronically;
• Follow department procedures, the Solicitor’s Accounts Rules and the Firm’s policies and procedures as detailed in the Office Manual.

The successful candidate will gain excellent exposure to a broad range of Property and development work.

This is not an exhaustive list and from time to time it may be necessary to vary these to meet the department and business needs.

Person specification

Attributes and skills required:

• Strong academic background, ideally gaining a 2:1 at degree level;
• Excellent administration and organisation skills, including diary management and the ability to deal with more than one task at a time;
• Must have a methodical approach, with a high attention to detail and produce work / documentation which is consistently of a high standard;
• Competent in all MS applications including Word, Excel and Outlook;
• Must be client focussed and have an approachable manner with excellent communication skills both written and verbal;
• The ability to prioritise workload to increase efficiency;
• Commercially aware, proactive and able to convey clear and concise information to clients and external organisations, which will not compromise the practice or the Firm;
• To have a flexible approach to work to ensure client deadlines are always met, and clients are communicated with on a consistent and regular basis;
• Familiarity with Registered Social Landlords would be an advantage but is not essential.