Description
Legal Assistant Bilingual, Haitian Creole and/or Spanish
Fast-paced and growing family, Immigration Law Firm seeks an experienced, detail-oriented, highly-organized, assertive, self-confident, emotionally mature, and self-directed person to work full time from our Chandler office. Personal and professional discretion is a must.
Excellent communication skills, verbal and written. Part of your job will be to function as the "hub" of our busy office and pitch in to lend a hand when needed.
Our Legal Assistant is a regular voice with the clients. Your recommendations and ideas for how to improve the operations of the law firm will be given real consideration. Your contributions will be appreciated.
The candidate we seek has the intelligence, imagination, and experience to "see around corners" with thick enough skin and enough backbone not to take constructive criticism personally. Absolutely no "toxic" personalities are permitted onto our team. This is to protect the sanity of the owner of the firm as well as all the members of the team and the clients, too. If you are the right candidate this should come as welcome news to you!
The successful candidate will be able to work hard, maintain a positive attitude, make well-thought-out suggestions at the appropriate times, and follow agreed policies and procedures in between. The right candidate should have the experience to anticipate what a busy attorney's personal and professional needs are likely to be and the flexibility to grow and adapt to the job, knowing that every day brings with it a new adventure in a busy law firm.
We are looking for a long-term relationship with the right candidate. He or she should be a thoughtful and detail-oriented person, with a professional appearance, good personal hygiene, extremely organized, and a high degree of personal pride for a job well done. At this law firm, we like to work hard, get the job done and then enjoy having a life outside of the office as our reward. Not the other way around.
Please be very Word, email, and Excel proficient. The person we're looking for understands that law firms must bill clients in order for any of us (including you) to get paid, and will be enthusiastic about being sure this critical function of our business gets the attention it deserves, on a timely basis and is done accurately.
You should be able to demonstrate good judgment, the ability to prioritize your activities with minimal supervision to meet deadlines and coordinate cheerfully with your fellow team members to get the job done without bickering over brownie points because we don't play that game in this firm. Experience with Bill4time, Infusionsoft, and PowerPoint is a plus.
Professional decorum with a good sense of humor. We take our business very seriously around here but not ourselves. We like to have fun and we want our Legal Assistant/Legal Secretary to think his or her job is pretty great too!
Above-average ability to learn and adapt as our business grows and takes on new dimensions. The successful candidate should know how to "get things done" with minimal supervision and doesn't watch the clock...ever! In fact, we'd love to find a proactive individual who can see the big picture and then make recommendations for all the nitty-gritty details to make things better instead of waiting around for instructions.
Benefits include:

• Working with some of the best clients in Georgia
• Being on the cutting edge of shaping the legal industry
• Recognized work-life balance
• Paid holidays
• 1 week of sick leave
• 1 week of paid time off

Job Type: Full-time
Experience:

• Legal Assistant: 2 years (Required)
• paralegal: 1 year (Required)

Language:

• Spanish/Haitian Creole (Required)

Responsibilities
Part of your job description is also to be patient with our growing pains. This can be the best job you ever had or the most frustrating depending on your flexibility, team spirit, commitment to our mission, and realistic expectations about what it's like to work in a fast-paced growing law firm.
This is a full-time position but with flexibility and freedom earned by your figuring out how to get things done. You need to run to the doctor, take care of some personal business, or even go out of town for a family emergency on short notice? No problem so long as you take responsibility for things getting done. This is a double-edged sword for slackers but we imagine great news for the right candidate.
Duties and responsibilities:
•Review and organize incoming mail
•Manage the firm's tickler system
•Maintain calendars
•Scheduling - this includes external and internal activities requiring paralegal or attorney attention
•Track, capture, and record billable time for yourself, our paralegals, and the attorneys
•Prioritize client-related matters
•Draft basic legal documents and prepare first drafts of legal forms
•Handle routine correspondence in your own voice on the attorney's behalf, not trying to pretend to be him
•Keep attorney apprised of short-term obligations as well as long-term implications of expedient decisions
•Manage some personal and professional relationships by being "nice" to our managing Attorney who is very nice but sometimes gets busy
•Be sure whatever the attorneys are looking for on a case or matter is always filed and findable
•Prepare and send monthly invoices
•Process payments to vendors and use spreadsheets to track costs
•Receive and record payments
•Liaise with other departments of our firm
•Answer the telephone and route or screening calls
Qualifications
•Brains, creativity, integrity
•Minimum of 2 years related experience supporting fast-paced attorney(s)
•Excellent references (Yes, we actually do check)
•Prioritize and multi-task effectively
•Strong communication skills, both written and verbal
•Proficiency in all areas of Microsoft Office and Apple iMac
•Experience working with some sort of CRM and/or law office management software
•Professional mindset and the utmost discretion
•Ability to work independently and as part of a team
•Detail-oriented with exceptional organizational skills
•Flexibility with hours and schedule; available to work overtime as needed
•United States work authorization
•Minimum type 55 wpm
Qualities/Attributes of Preferred Candidate:
•Self Starter/Responsible/Work Independently
•Diplomatic/Tactful
•Inquisitive
•Assertive
•Non-judgmental
•Flexible
•Problem-Solving and Analytical Ability
•Communication Skills
•Sociable
•Willing to hold employers accountable to their goals
•Tolerance for ambiguity
•Comfortable working in a growth environment
•Positive attitude & emotionally healthy
•Non-smoker
Experience:
We are less concerned with how many years of experience you have than we are with how many experiences you have gained and mastered during those years.
Miscellaneous:
Problem-solving, listening skills, alignment with core philosophy, detail-oriented, systematic, creative, good-natured, emotionally secure, patient, optimistic, flexible, knows when to lead and when to follow. These are all adjectives and terms that describe our ideal candidate.