Legal Secretary (Practice Support Coordinator), Sydney

Who We Are

As one of the leading international law firms, our work spans jurisdictions, cultures, and languages – and so do our people.

We believe every career at Clifford Chance should be rewarding and stimulating –  full of opportunities to learn, thrive, and grow. That’s why we’re so proud of our inclusive, friendly and collaborative approach to work. 

You’ll find our clients in commercial and industrial sectors, the financial investor community, governments, regulators, trade bodies, and not-for-profit organisations.

But no matter who they are or why they’ve reached out to us, we provide a world-class service every step of the way. And that’s possible thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit and conscientious approach to work that you’ll find across all our teams.

Whatever your area of expertise, Clifford Chance is a place where the brightest minds meet.

The Role

This position is responsible for providing proactive practice support and administration support to the lawyers of the Firm primarily in relation to billable client work, and ensuring clients are serviced in a professional manner and in accordance with the Firm's policies and procedures.

This includes being a part of a client matter team and supporting all matter-related processes from matter inception to project completion, billing and collection. The Practice Support Coordinator will take full ownership of the delivery of their key responsibilities detailed below.

Key Responsibilities

Matter Management

• Client and matter clearance and opening
• AML processes
• Engagement letters
• MTM maintenance
• Managing associate's checklist
• Matter document folder
• Matter project administration (from the opening to the closing of matter including setup of
• matter SharePoint site, updating email distribution lists, to supporting post-closing activities
• such as bibling, archiving, and ensuring that all appointments and conference calls are in the lawyers' calendars)
• Client & matter-team meetings and updates

Commercials/Billing/Collections

• Monitoring and recording project scope and adjustments, estimates, caps, billing agreements
• Matter balance report and client fee updates
• Working Capital management – facilitate all WC activities:
• organise monthly meeting between relevant partner and working capital team to review WIP/Debt positions.
• prepare for monthly meetings by circulating drafts to fee earners for review, with final review by lead associate
• If meetings need to move due to client commitments, responsible for rearranging, meeting to ensure it occurs every month
• Support Billing and collection tasks including raising timely and accurate GMPS bills, invoices, tax computations and write-offs for billing team's review. Liaise with the billing team and dispatch invoices to clients safely.
• Draft bill; amending narratives as required and draft accompanying bill letters.

Business Development Support

Support Partners and the BD team with business development activity:

• amend business development and client focus materials including CVs, pitches presentations, client briefings etc.
• monitoring of business development collateral such as CVs and MIS to ensure it is up to date, including the BD tracker and InterAction.
• organise, facilitate and provide host support for events where required, including virtual events.
• facilitating updates to clients.
• Inform the BD team of the schedules of visiting partners and work with the BD team on the relevant logistics

Matter Team Support

Document production and DPU liaison where necessary, includes:

• transcribing, editing and amending legal and other documents.
• convert, compare, copy type and proofread the same as necessary, ensuring that documents comply with house style
• Signing pages where applicable
• e-Filing where applicable
• Post-closing activities where applicable
• Preparation of bibles and distribution of bibles as necessary

Best Delivery/Legal Tech/KETL Opportunities/Projects

• Understand and support the use of legal technology, including facilitation and management of solutions applied to a matter where necessary. Includes knowledge of the Best Delivery checklist.
• Best delivery tools superuser
• Facilitate end of matter review to identify follow on opportunities such as deal reviews, KETL opportunities etc.

Your experience

• Minimum 2 years work experience in a similar or relevant role within a professional services environment
• Able to work in a high performing environment
• Intermediate to advanced level of proficiency in Microsoft Word, Outlook Excel and PowerPoint
• Strong organisational skills and meticulous attention to detail
• A proactive, mature and collaborative approach to managing work and relationships within and across teams
• Respectful of colleagues and able to work in an inclusive team environment
• Effective at working both autonomously and within a team environment
• Ability to innovate and streamline processes and tasks

Equal opportunities statement

At Clifford Chance, we understand that our true asset is our people. Inclusion is good for our team and their families, our firm and society.

We are committed to treating all employees and applicants fairly and equally regardless of their gender, gender identity and expression, marital or civil partnership status, race, colour, national or ethnic origin, social or economic background, disability, religious belief, sexual orientation, or age.  This applies to recruitment and selection, terms and conditions of employment including pay, promotion, training, transfer and every other aspect of employment.

We have a variety of flourishing employee networks. These networks are a place for colleagues to share experiences and advocate for change wherever they see an opportunity for improvement.

Our goal is to deliver an equality of opportunity, an equality of aspiration and an equality of experience to everyone who works in our firm. 

Find out more about our inclusive culture here