We're a forward-thinking law firm and have several offices across the UK.  We provide legal expertise and commercial advice to our clients across a wide range of sectors including Real Estate.  We now have a job opportunity for a Legal Assistant to join our large Residential Real Estate team in Newcastle on a full time, permanent basis.

The team

Our Residential team is one of the largest of its kind.  We support our clients in a range of projects acting for Registered Providers in the affordable housing sector, PLC house builders, regional house builders, PRS investors and land-owners in respect of residential and residential-led mixed-use developments, for both build to rent and build for sale sectors.

The role

This interesting role will see you working on a broad range of matters, assisting with housing and leasehold management issues – shared ownership, right to buy etc. for developers, investors or affordable housing clients.  More specifically you'll play an essential part in ensuring that new files are opened correctly, adhering to both our internal processes and individual client requirements, in addition to producing initial correspondence whilst ensuring that all files are managed effectively and efficiently. And in time, this role provides genuine scope to take on more complex responsibilities as you develop your knowledge in this area of law.

This varied role will also involve:

• Assisting with post completion work
• Preparing and submitting Land Registry applications
• Obtaining official copies from the Land Registry and Land charges search results
• Preparing financial payment forms
• Assisting with the preparation of completion statements
• Ensuring client files opened are compliant with the Solicitors Regulation Authority
• Making phone calls to clients and solicitors to update or chase for information
• Preparing and issuing correspondence and legal documents
• Checking file ledger balances and closing client matter files

What are we looking for?

This is a fantastic opportunity for someone making the next move in their Legal Admin career, or a Legal graduate looking to make the first step in to the profession.  You'll have a strong team ethic with excellent attention to detail and your strong organisational skills will enable you to work to strict deadlines.  Previous real estate experience, whilst advantageous, is by no means essential. What is essential are strong IT skills (including MS Word, Excel and Outlook) and excellent communication skills, both verbal and written.

To be successful in this role you'll need as a minimum: 

• Evidence of good academics either from school, university or other studies.
• Good written and oral communication skills, with a close attention to detail.
• Excellent prioritisation skills, with an ability to work under pressure and to tight deadlines.
• Some previous experience of working within an office environment.
• Strong IT skills (including MS Word, Excel and Outlook).

We continually work hard to create an open culture that sets us apart from other firms. Our culture gives us much more of a human feel, emphasising that we're more than just suits!

As signatories to the Mindful Business Charter, it's important to us that our people are able to maintain healthy and happy lives, both in and out of work. We have a number of resources and initiatives designed to support health and wellbeing and we're very happy to talk flexible working.

Through our DEI initiatives we create an environment in which difference is valued. We have an Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Group, led by our Board Sponsor, which works with our colleague networks (we currently have firm supported networks for race, ethnicity, and cultural heritage, LGBTQ+, disabilities, neurodiversity, families, and women's career development and we're in constant dialogue with our people about how we expand our networks to better support everybody). Find out more about DEI at WBD here. We encourage applicants from all social backgrounds, ethnicities, disabilities, gender identities and sexual orientations.

We are committed to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible to all. If you have a disability or long term condition and need us to make any adjustments to give you the best possible recruitment process, please let us know by contacting the recruiter on the right hand side of this page. Please also let us know if you need this job advert or the application form in a different format.

We will offer an interview to candidates with a disability or long-term condition who meet the minimum criteria for this role. You can opt into this scheme within the application form. Your response to this question is only used for this purpose, is only visible to the recruitment team and is not used for data monitoring. 

We are an in-house recruitment team and will always aim to fill our roles directly in the first instance. If you're an agency, please click here for ways that you can work with us.