Legal Services Office Manager & Personal Assistant to General Counsel

The Legal Office Manager/Personal Assistant is responsible for the effective day-to-day management and provision of administrative and office processes within Legal Services and for providing high-quality personal assistant support to the General Counsel and senior members of the Legal Services leadership team. The post holder will ensure that Legal Services operates efficiently, with robust administrative systems, effective coordination and well-managed workflows, enabling legal professionals to focus on the delivery of legal advice and casework. The role requires provision and oversight of high quality administrative support, line management and supervision of junior administrative staff, coordination of workloads, independent prioritisation and close liaison with internal and external stakeholders. The role does not provide legal advice or undertake legal case management but has responsibility for administrative service provision, organisation and coordination.

Please see attached the Job Description and Personal Specification which sets out further details of the main responsibilities of the role.

Manage the day-to-day administrative operations of the Legal Services team, ensuring systems, processes, and workflows are efficient and effective.

Act as the key point of coordination for legal administrative activity, undertaking administrative duties effectively and allocating work to administrative staff as appropriate and monitoring progress.

Maintain and oversee filing, document control, and records management systems in line with Trust policy, Department Standards and legal requirements.

Identify opportunities to improve administrative processes, and implement changes with agreement of the Legal Services leadership team.

Retrieve, open, log and distribute incoming post and emails in accordance with established procedures. Assist with monitoring of central mailbox to ensure queries and emails are reviewed, triaged and assigned in a timely fashion.

Maintain electronic and paper filing systems to ensure accurate, complete and up-to-date legal records.

Assist with routine administrative tasks relating to claims, inquests, court directions, and legal correspondence including filing, scanning, e-file management, and post where applicable.

Report new claims to NHS Resolution in accordance with claims reporting procedures

Provide comprehensive PA support to the General Counsel and senior legal staff, including diary management, meeting coordination, email management and document preparation.

Organise and manage meetings, including preparation of agendas, collation of papers, minute-taking, and follow-up of agreed actions.

Exercise judgement in prioritising requests and managing competing demands on senior staff time

Support induction and administrative on-boarding of new Legal Services staff.

When submitting your application please confirm whether you have used a generative AI tool (for example, Microsoft Copilot or ChatGPT) in preparing your application and, if so, briefly describe how you used it.

NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group (UHL Group) was formed on 1 November 2024, born from a shared aim to improve the care we provide our communities.

We are one of the largest employers in region, with over 18,900 colleagues who are dedicated to caring for our communities - from birth and beyond.

For the 630,000 people across Merseyside, we are their local NHS. We provide general and emergency hospital care, alongside highly specialised regional services that extend to more than two million people in the North West.

We operate from five hospital sites:Aintree University Hospitalis the single receiving site for adult major trauma patients in Cheshire and Merseyside, and hosts a number of regional services including an award-winning stroke facility.Broadgreen Hospitalis home to several elective surgical, diagnostic and treatment services, together with specialist patient rehabilitation.Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospitalprovide specialist services incardiothoracic surgery,cardiology and respiratory medicine, both in the hospital and out in the community.Liverpool Women's Hospitalspecialises in the health of women and babies, delivering over 7,200 babies in the UK's largest single site maternity hospital each year. TheRoyal Liverpool University Hospital is the largest hospital in the country to provide inpatients with 100% single en-suite bedrooms and mainly focuses on complex planned care and specialist services.

Qualifications

Experience

Desirable: - Working within an NHS legal team or solicitor's firm

Knowledge

Essential: - Strong understanding of administrative and office management systems; - Understanding of confidentiality and data protection

Desirable: - Understanding of the Civil Procedure Rules and NHS Resolution claims reporting requirements; - Knowledge of risk management systems such as Datix and InPhase

Skills