Legal Secretary

This position regularly collaborates with the attorneys and staff throughout the Chicago Office as well as attorneys and staff throughout the firm. The successful candidate will be self-motivated, proactive, and possess strong communication skills. A commitment to client service with strong attention to detail is essential. This position will provide legal support to a legal team consisting of five (5) or more attorneys.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES include the following.  Other duties may be assigned.

• Prepare and process legal documents including, but not limited to subpoenas, complaints, motions, and other pre-trial documents.
• Organize exhibits, documents, briefs, and other supporting documentation. This could include providing clerical assistance in all phases of document production and trial preparation.
• Record and monitor deadlines through the Firm docketing system and individual attorney calendar systems.
• Prepare, proof and format correspondence, pleadings, and other necessary documentation.
• Collaborate with attorneys to assist in balancing the team’s workload to ensure timely completion of projects.
• Spearhead the coordination of notebook and binder projects. This could include notebooks for depositions, hearings, arbitrations, mediations, and trial.
• Assist in reviewing and finalizing attorney pre-bills. This could include entering time into Intapp Time.
• Assist with opening and closing of client matters.
• Schedule various events and meetings to include coordinating travel arrangements, reserving internal conference rooms, and reserving guest offices (across all offices).
• Enroll attorneys in CLE courses and assist with CLE questions and recording.
• Process timely expense reimbursements through ChromeRiver.
• Coordinate travel arrangements.
• Other duties as requested and assigned.

QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS: To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily.  The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

EDUCATION/EXPERIENCE:

• High School diploma or general education degree (GED); and a minimum of 7 years of related experience or the equivalent combination of education and experience. Professional services experience highly desirable.

TECHNICAL SKILLS:

• Advanced proficiency in Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Office Suite including Word, Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint. Advanced skills in Microsoft Word to include using styles, track changes, and document comparison programs.
• Prior experience with Judicial Council Forms, Intapp Time for time entry, ChromeRiver for invoice processing, and NetDocs (Document Management System) is a plus.
• Proven aptitude to learn new software applications.

LANGUAGE SKILLS:

• Ability to speak effectively with all levels of clients and professional and support staff. Interpersonal communication skills necessary to maintain effective relationships with partners, attorneys, clients and staff, and to exhibit a high degree of responsiveness, diplomacy and professionalism in these interactions.
• Ability to respond to common inquiries or complaints from all levels of professional and support staff, clients, regulatory agencies, or members of the business community.
• Ability to read and interpret documents such as operating instructions, procedure manuals, general business periodicals, professional journals, technical procedures, governmental regulations, financial reports, and legal documents.

MATHEMATICAL SKILLS:

• Ability to add, subtract, multiply, and divide in all units of measure, using whole numbers, common fractions, and decimals.

REASONING ABILITY:

• Ability to apply common sense understanding to carry out instructions furnished in written, oral, or diagram form.
• Ability to deal with problems involving several concrete variables in standardized situations.
• Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts and draw valid conclusions.
• Ability to interpret an extensive variety of instructions and deal with several abstract and concrete variables.
• Exhibit independent thinking and decision making.
• Ability to interpret an extensive variety of instructions in mathematical or diagram form and deal with several abstract and concrete variables.
• Ability to think strategically, develop tactics and execute pragmatically.

OTHER SKILLS and ABILITIES:

• Knowledge of federal and state court systems, including federal e-filing and state court filing systems required. This includes keeping current with changes in court rules and filing procedures.
• Washington State notary is a plus.
• Ability to prioritize issues and workload as well as anticipate projects that need to be completed.
• Demonstrated ability to multi-task and be detail-oriented with strong organizational skills. Ability to prioritize multiple tasks and projects in a fast-paced environment with strict deadlines.
• Ability to exercise discretion with confidential and sensitive information.
• Provide dependable, flexible support. This could include providing administrative support to others as requested by the Office Administrator whenever workload permits.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS: The physical demands described here are representative of those that should be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit; use hands to finger, handle, or feel objects, documents, books, pen/pencil, paper, controls and manipulate a keyboard, and input data into a PC; and talk or hear. The employee is frequently required to walk.
• The employee is occasionally required to use hands to prepare correspondence and reports on a personal computer.
• The employee is occasionally required to stand and reach with hands and arms. And stoop, kneel, bend, crouch or crawl.
• Ability to operate a variety of standard office equipment including a computer, copy and facsimile machines.
• The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds.
• Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and the ability to adjust focus.

WORK ENVIRONMENT: The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate.

The expected annual salary for this position ranges from $75,000 – $90,000. The salary offered will be determined by a wide range of factors including but not limited to experience level, education/training, and relevant skills.

Baker & Hostetler LLP is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Salary : $75,000 - $90,000