Legal Secretary – Personal Injury & Medical Negligence | Dublin | Permanent | Full-Time | €38,000 per annum | Monday–Friday
Key Points
- Salary: €38,000 per annum
- Contract: Permanent, full-time
- Hours: Monday–Friday, 9:00am–5:30pm
- Lunch: One hour
- Annual Leave: 21 days
- Experience: Minimum 5 years’ legal secretarial experience overall
- Irish Experience: At least 3 years working as a Legal Secretary in Ireland – essential
- Dictaphone: Strong, fully competent Dictaphone typing skills – essential
- Practice Area: Personal Injury / Medical Negligence experience highly desirable
- Pension: Employer matching contribution up to 3%
- Additional Schemes: TaxSaver and Bike to Work
Job & Firm Overview
Hall Recruitment is recruiting an experienced Legal Secretary to join an established Irish legal practice, working directly with an Associate Solicitor handling Personal Injury and Medical Negligence matters.
This is a traditional, hands-on legal secretarial position for someone who already understands the standards, terminology, documentation and pace expected within an Irish solicitor’s practice.
You’ll work primarily with one Associate Solicitor, providing dedicated secretarial and administrative support across their caseload. Your day will involve substantial Dictaphone typing, client and counsel communications, preparing legal documentation, maintaining files and helping compile briefs for hearings and settlement talks.
The client would ideally like someone who already has Personal Injury or Medical Negligence experience. However, candidates from other legal practice areas will also be considered where they have strong Irish legal secretarial experience and the core technical skills required to perform the role confidently from the outset.
What You’ll Be Doing
Dedicated Legal Secretarial Support
You’ll provide day-to-day support to one Associate Solicitor, helping them manage their caseload efficiently and ensuring correspondence, documentation and files are dealt with accurately and promptly.
Your responsibilities will include:
- Extensive Dictaphone typing
- Preparing and formatting legal correspondence and documentation
- Managing correspondence on behalf of the Associate Solicitor
- Maintaining organised electronic and physical files
- Filing and general legal administration
- Managing documents and case information
- Assisting with diary and case-related administration
- Ensuring documentation is completed accurately and within required timelines
Client & Counsel Communication
You’ll regularly communicate with clients, counsel and other parties involved in ongoing matters.
You’ll need to be confident and professional when:
- Speaking with clients by telephone
- Managing email correspondence
- Liaising with barristers and counsel
- Following up on documentation and information
- Communicating sensitive information appropriately
- Ensuring messages and correspondence are accurately recorded and actioned
Because the work includes Personal Injury and Medical Negligence cases, you’ll sometimes be dealing with clients during difficult or sensitive circumstances.
A professional, patient and discreet approach is therefore important.
Briefs, Hearings & Settlement Talks
You’ll assist the Associate Solicitor with preparing matters as they progress towards hearings, consultations or settlement discussions.
This will include:
- Compiling briefs for counsel
- Preparing briefs for hearings
- Preparing documentation for settlement talks
- Organising correspondence, reports and supporting documentation
- Ensuring files are complete and properly organised
- Assisting with document preparation ahead of important case dates
Strong attention to detail is essential. You’ll need to be someone who notices when a document, attachment or piece of information is missing rather than waiting for the solicitor to discover it.
Essential Experience
This is an experienced Legal Secretary position and previous Irish legal secretarial experience is essential.
To be considered, you must have:
- At least 5 years’ total experience working as a Legal Secretary
- A minimum of 3 years’ Legal Secretary experience within Ireland
- Strong, fully competent Dictaphone typing experience
- Excellent Microsoft Word skills
- Strong working knowledge of Outlook and Microsoft Office
- Good general computer literacy
- Experience working with legal files, correspondence and documentation
- Strong typing and document-formatting skills
- Excellent attention to detail
- Professional telephone and email communication skills
- Fluent written and spoken English
- Ability to handle confidential and sensitive information
- Unrestricted long-term permission to live and work in Ireland
Please note that general administration or secretarial experience without substantial legal secretarial experience will not meet the requirements for this particular position.
Personal Injury & Medical Negligence Experience
Previous experience supporting solicitors working in Personal Injury and/or Medical Negligence is highly desirable.
Relevant experience could include:
- Personal Injury litigation
- Medical Negligence
- Litigation
- Plaintiff litigation
- Brief preparation
- Counsel liaison
- Hearing preparation
- Settlement documentation
However, this is not being treated as an absolute requirement where a candidate has substantial Irish legal secretarial experience in another relevant practice area and can demonstrate that they have the technical skills to adapt quickly.
Legal Case Management Systems
The firm currently uses Keyhouse Case Management.
Previous Keyhouse experience would be advantageous, but it isn’t essential.
Candidates who have worked extensively with another legal case management system should be comfortable learning Keyhouse, provided they already understand electronic case management, document storage and file administration within a legal practice.
What We’re Looking For
Beyond experience, we’re looking for someone who is:
- Accurate – Legal documentation requires a very high standard of attention to detail.
- Organised – You can keep correspondence, files, deadlines and documentation under control.
- Self-sufficient – With substantial legal secretarial experience behind you, you’re comfortable managing the everyday requirements of a solicitor’s caseload.
- Professional – You communicate appropriately with clients, counsel, colleagues and other parties.
- Discreet – You understand the confidentiality required when handling legal and personal information.
- Technically confident – Dictaphone typing, Word, Outlook and legal case management systems are familiar parts of your working day.
Salary & Benefits
Salary
€38,000 per annum
Working Hours
Monday–Friday, 9:00am–5:30pm, with a one-hour lunch break.
Annual Leave
21 days’ annual leave
Pension
Employees who choose the firm’s pension arrangement can receive an employer-matched contribution of up to 3%.
For example, an employee contributing 1% will receive a 1% employer contribution; an employee contributing 3% will receive the maximum 3% employer contribution.
The applicable pension arrangement will depend on the employee’s participation in the firm’s pension or the relevant auto-enrolment arrangements.
Additional Schemes
Employees can also avail of:
- TaxSaver
- Bike to Work Scheme
Apply Now
If you’re an experienced Legal Secretary with at least five years’ legal secretarial experience, including a minimum of three years working within an Irish legal practice, we’d like to hear from you.
Personal Injury or Medical Negligence experience would be particularly valuable, but strong Legal Secretaries from other relevant practice areas are also encouraged to apply.
For this vacancy, please note that Irish legal secretarial experience, strong Dictaphone skills and unrestricted permission to work in Ireland are essential requirements.
At Hall Recruitment, we’re dedicated to building diverse and authentic workplaces. We also know that excellent candidates rarely match 100% of a job description. While several requirements above are flexible, the essential experience requirements for this particular vacancy must be met.
