EDUCATION AND WORK EXPERIENCE

• Paralegal certificate or progress towards same required
• Experience with general corporate commercial practice, including minute-book and corporate-registries filing
• Competency using content management systems such as iManage or equivalent software
• Advanced proficiency using Microsoft® Office software, particularly Word, PowerPoint and Excel
• Preferably, some exposure to other general areas of law, such as litigation, employment or intellectual property
• Working knowledge of SharePoint an asset

PURPOSE OF THE POSITION

The Junior Paralegal will be responsible for providing legal and administrative support to the SMART legal team. You will be expected to fulfill both paralegal duties and administrative tasks. The legal department will require support with revising, electronic execution, and filing/storage of contracts. You will be asked to assist with administration of corporate filings, reporting activities, and general corporate secretarial tasks. You will also have a strategic role in development, implementing and managing the department’s document management system, contract management practices, and will play a role in creating professional development plans for the team and for the company.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Assist lawyers and professional staff with various administrative tasks
• Process and file documents
• Provide support for iManage file opening and management
• Manage filing system
• Process invoices
• General office support as required by legal team members
• Assist lawyers with travel arrangements, expense management (submission and tracking) and meeting set-up and coordination of room bookings
• Continuously expand familiarity with, recommend and implement improvements to systems and processes
• Develop a sufficient understanding of other departmental administration roles in order to provide baseline coverage for such roles
• Assist in administering legal budget and creation and maintenance of associated spreadsheets
• Assist with various financial reports including preparation of monthly accruals of legal accounts
• Assessment of in-coming work tasks and referral of matter to appropriate lawyer
• Attend to the registration and licensing requirements of the various SMART affiliated entities
• Maintenance of the Legal Portal site on SMART Central
• Attend to minute book filings as required and maintain SMART Ideas subsidiary org chart
• Shared responsibility for a variety of internal and external reporting, including:
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• provide accrual and invoice account information to Finance for financial reporting purposes
• reconciliation of long-term equity incentive awards with HR and Finance
• compilation and forwarding of contracts for embedded derivative assessment
• summary of litigation related costs prepared
• Preparation of drafts of occasional correspondence and documentation
• Develop and implement patent management system
• Assist in preparing for board and committee meetings
• Review and drafting of various legal documents
• Identification and escalation of business and legal risks
• Deep integration with contract management lifecyles at the company
• Development and implementation of department professional training programs and presentations
• Strong emphasis on cost and accrual management with respect to external counsel
• Performing other duties as required