Paralegal

Baker Hostetler is looking for an experienced Paralegal to join its Private Wealth Group in the Firm's Cleveland office. This is a non-exempt position that reports to the Cleveland office's Human Resources Manager and works with the attorneys and staff in the Firm's Private Wealth Group. The ideal candidate will possess excellent people and organizational skills, and will have the ability to work in a fast-paced environment.

This role requires creativity and the ability to think innovatively and exercise independent judgment when necessary while handling sensitive and confidential information.

Responsibilities:

• Handling complex probate, trust and estate administration.
• Preparing federal gift and estate tax returns.
• Interfacing with clients and acting as liaison between clients/attorney and court/attorney.
• Delivering excellent work and superior service to the Firm's clients, and contributing to the Firm's reputation for excellence by providing highly efficient and effective support to the attorneys.
• Other duties as requested and assigned.

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree and a minimum of 5 years of law firm experience. Equivalent combination of education and experience can offset education requirement.
• Advanced skills with Excel, Outlook and Word. Proven aptitude to learn new software applications (specifically GEMS, as the current software used to prepare federal gift and estate tax returns).
• Interpersonal communication skills necessary to maintain effective relationships with attorneys, clients, and staff in person, by email and telephone. Ability to provide a high level of customer service and be able to clearly and effectively communicate both verbally and in writing.
• Must be detailed oriented, and able to work independently and in a team environment.
• Fundamental knowledge of legal terminology, court rules and procedures.

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 effectively and promptly 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. Ability to calculate figures and amounts such as discounts, proportions, percentages, area and circumference.

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 think strategically, develop tactics and execute pragmatically.

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.

OTHER SKILLS and ABILITIES:

Demonstrated ability to multi-task and be detail-oriented with strong…