Head of Secretarial Services

This job is with Kennedys, an inclusive employer and a member of my Gwork – the largest global platform for the LGBTQ+ business community. Please do not contact the recruiter directly. Kennedys is looking for a Head of Secretarial Services to join our Secretarial team based in the UK.

The Head of Secretarial Services is responsible for leading, managing, and developing the Firm's secretarial and administrative support function. This role ensures high-quality, efficient, and consistent secretarial support to fee earners while driving best practices, service excellence, and continuous improvement across the firm. In addition, this role is responsible for overseeing the support model to the Firm's senior leadership, including the Executive Group.

• Define and deliver the firm's UK secretarial services strategy in line with the strategic objectives.
• Lead, manage and motivate the secretary teams across all UK practice areas, working with the Secretarial Manager, Regional and Local Managing Partners, Divisional Heads and others to engage the teams.
• Manage the UK Secretarial Manager and Executive Office Manager.
• Lead on horizon scanning, workforce planning, and ensuring that we future proof the secretarial model and that it fulfils the needs of our Partners, lawyers and others.
• Working with other Business Services teams, define and deliver efficiencies across the function which result in improved service delivery to legal teams.
• Review and streamline workflows to improve efficiency and productivity.
• Lead initiatives related to new ways of working across the function, ensuring adoption and engagement firmwide.
• Drive adoption of legal technology, document management systems, and other digital tools.
• Partner with legal teams to understand current and future requirements and deliver solutions which drive client service.
• Ensure and oversee the delivery of an effective support model for senior leadership, including but not limited to the Executive Group, the Regional Managing Partners and the Business Services Leadership Team.
• Maintain a high-performance culture within secretarial function, ensuring the firm recruits and retains key talent.
• Take ultimate responsibility for delivering a fully resourced secretarial team, forecasting and allocating resources as appropriate.
• Work closely with colleagues in Business Services teams to ensure a collaborative approach, to ways of working, working especially closely with Finance, Risk & Compliance, Knowledge Management, Marketing & Business Development and HR.
• Manage departmental budgets and control costs effectively.

• Previous secretarial leadership experience
• Strong leadership and people management skills
• Excellent organizational and prioritization abilities
• Strong understanding of law firm operations and legal support services
• Ability to manage change and drive continuous improvement
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills
• High attention to detail and commitment to quality
• Committed, enthusiastic and innovative
• Flexible and resilient with strong problem solving skills
• Self-motivated and able to work using own initiative and challenge working practices.

Please let us know if you require any additional support or adjustments to be made in order to submit your application to Kennedys.

Where a level of experience is indicated, this is a guideline only and represents the amount of time we would usually expect a candidate to accumulate the requisite level of experience. This does not preclude applications from candidates with more or less experience.

Kennedys is a global law firm with expertise in dispute resolution and advisory services. With over 2,750 people worldwide across 47 offices in the UK, Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific and America we have some of the most respected legal minds in their field. Our lawyers handle both contentious and non-contentious matters, and provide a range of specialist legal services, for many industry sectors but we have particular expertise in litigation and dispute resolution, especially in defending insurance and liability claims.

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