Secretarial Supervisor

WilmerHale is a leading, full-service international law firm with 1,000 lawyers located throughout 12 offices in the United States, Europe and Asia. Our lawyers work at the intersection of government, technology and business, and we remain committed to our guiding principles of providing quality, excellent legal and client services; developing diversity among our lawyers and staff and cultivating an environment that promotes an ambitious spirit, collaboration and collegiality by drawing on the extraordinary talents and dynamic experience of our lawyers. Our goal is to reflect the diversity of our clients and the communities in which we practice

What You Will Be Doing

The Secretarial Supervisor is responsible for supervising daily workflow and secretarial support and ensuring the timely and cost-effective completion of legal secretarial work and firm administrative work.  The Supervisor supports the firm’s goal of providing excellent client service by building and maintaining strong working relationships with attorneys, secretaries and other administrative departments.

Assists with proactively supporting client service by actively participating in the firm's Service Excellence initiative. Ensures that secretarial staff members are providing quality service to internal members/departments of the firm as well as external clients and vendors by displaying professionalism via electronic and print correspondence, over the telephone and in-person and by encouraging an atmosphere that rewards a "can do" attitude.

About This Role

• Supervises and monitors secretarial workflow to ensure timely completion of all firm and client work; delegates and reassigns work as necessary to balance workloads and minimize overtime and related client/firm expenses.
• Communicates continually with attorneys/paralegals and secretaries to ensure that the required support is available and satisfactory and maintains an open-door policy to be the first point of contact for all concerns regarding the secretarial function.
• Escalates and works with the Secretarial Manager to resolve broad workload balancing concerns and employee relations matters.
• Approves PTO and timesheets for secretaries; resolves issues related to time off and ensures the accurate recording of hours worked.
• Assists Secretarial Managers in the development of training programs for new and existing secretarial staff; participates in the development/delivery of orientation for new attorneys/paralegals to communicate information which fosters effective support and working relationships.
• Coordinates the performance evaluation process by soliciting feedback from attorneys and paralegals; writes and delivers annual performance evaluations to secretarial staff based on solicited feedback and first-hand observations; communicates performance and salary adjustment information; establishes prospective performance objectives for individual secretaries (or teams of secretaries) based on performance reviews; meets with secretaries to provide regular feedback concerning performance and/or areas of performance requiring additional training or improvement.
• Analyzes and assesses ongoing secretarial requirements and recommends staffing changes to meet the firm’s client and administrative needs.
• Participates in first level interviews for secretarial candidates.
• Keeps abreast of firm’s technology and works with the firm’s Information Services department as an advocate for computer applications and training; participates in the testing of new applications.
• Attends and contributes to all administrative team and secretarial staff meetings, and all training necessary to understand all job tasks in the secretarial function.
• Assumes additional responsibilities as necessary.