DESCRIPTION

Keoghs are seeking a Complex Injury Paralegal / Assistant Lawyer to join our growing Complex Injury Team. The role offers an opportunity to work with our exceptionally talented & technically excellent Catastrophic Personal Injury Partner, Phill Bratt and his team. Phill is a Legal 500 ranked Next Generation Partner in London and has been involved in cases with a total value in excess of £500M in his career to date (see Phill’s LinkedIn profile for full details of his work). In particular, this role is working closely with a newly promoted Large Loss Lawyer in the team and will be based in our Leeds office.
The role working with Phill and his team offers an excellent opportunity to gain experience in large loss and complex injury work with claims in excess of £250,000 and no upper limit. Typical cases include complex liability, brain damage, tetraplegia and traumatic amputations. You will be required to undertake a variety of file handling tasks to support the team.
Your work will be supervised and feedback given as you develop your skills in this area. The role would particularly suit someone who already has experience working in a paralegal / lawyer / file handler / solicitor or similar role in a personal injury team and is looking to develop their skills and career in complex injury claims.
This is a fantastic opportunity for someone to develop their legal career with a view to becoming a catastrophic personal injury lawyer in the long term.

SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERTISE

• A desire to learn and develop a career as a large loss or catastrophic personal injury lawyer over the medium to long term
• Experience of and understanding of the litigation process, in a file handling or assistant RTA or EL/PL personal injury role is highly desirable
• Good telephone and communication skills with people at all levels inside and outside the business
• An ability to organise and prioritise tasks using initiative
• Calm under pressure with the ability to re-prioritise and delegate effectively when required
• An ability to maintain attention to detail when dealing with repetitive tasks
• Self-confidence, with good literacy and IT skills
• Good team worker with the flexibility to do what is required to get a result and ensure client service levels are met
• Ability to work effectively within the Keoghs shared values framework
• Minimum education standard of 5 GCSEs grades 5 or above or A-C with established interest in law either through further education (e.g. LPC or ILEX) or experience within a legal environment

You will work as part of a team, helping to progress cases from a number of insurers in order to find the best resolution for the client. The role will include:

• Preparing basic court documents; filing and serving court documents; and diarising of court orders and hearing dates
• Liaising with experts and counsel regarding CVs, fees and availability for conferences, JSMs and hearings
• Liaising with insureds and witnesses regarding attendance at conferences, JSMs and hearings. Drafting of witness summons.
• Liaising with courts regarding hearings, applications and consent orders
• Registering and updating CRU, notifying CRU of settlement
• Maintaining experts summary, interim payment records and offer history within case management system
• Arranging appointments for claimants to be seen by medical experts; chasing for reports; drafting medical records mandates; applying for records and police accident reports
• Review of medical records and drafting summaries of those reviews using the records review spreadsheet
• Review of photographic evidence and surveillance footage and preparing a precis of the evidence
• Redaction of documents to ensure legal privilege maintained and/or no GDPR breaches
• Fielding telephone calls and dealing with general queries received from parties involved in the claims including the insureds, insurers, experts and witnesses
• Arranging payments where required
• Conducting legal research.
• Delivery of agreed performance targets and quality standards
• To ensure compliance with the SRA Standards & Regulations

As competency in role increases, tasks will also include:

• Preparing instructions to counsel to advise on papers, in conference or to attend hearings
• Liaising with parties involved in claims including the insured and witnesses to obtain evidence and draft witness statements
• Preparing disclosure lists of own evidence and reviewing third party disclosure, cross referencing with own evidence and expert evidence, identifying basic anomalies and inconsistencies
• Attending client meetings and note taking where client approval given
• Drafts non-strategic updates to clients and more complex court documents, subject to supervision.