Secretary - Legal

Description

Overview

The Legal Secretary performs paralegal, clerical, and secretarial functions to the Legal division. Duties may be routine, specialized, or complex, require accuracy, and may involve information of a confidential nature. Provides backup support to other legal secretarial staff.  

This role will work from the home office at least one day a week to complete mailings and processes.  

Responsibilities

• Composes letters, memorandums and other types of correspondence for internal and external distribution to a varied audience.
• Receives dictation assignments and transcribes as directed into documents such as reports, photograph summaries, statement transcripts, memos, letters or correspondence.
• Creates updates and/or maintains company related data files in accordance with company procedures.
• Documents and maintains information related to the work of the assigned division including background information, training material, manuals, correspondence, cost, processes, and queries.   Creates and maintains various data bases, lists and tables for reference and maintenance.
• Answers telephone and provides information to callers, takes messages, or transfers calls to individuals.
• Provides customer service to internal and external customers by answering questions via phone, email, in person, and messaging or directing them to the appropriate resource.
• Performs legal research as requested by attorneys.
• Works with in-house and outside counsel as required.
• Coordinates meeting and events times, locations, attendees, and other amenities as appropriate.  Keeps meeting notes and distributes to participants and other interested stakeholders.
• Required to work from the home office one or more days per week to process incoming and outgoing mailings, payments and other documents.
• Performs all other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Requires an Associate’s Degree and a minimum of two (2) years prior related legal experience, or equivalent combination of education and experience. Para-legal experience preferred.
• Ability to use office equipment including a telephone, personal computer and demonstrate an intermediate knowledge of Microsoft Office suite including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access, as well as general computer applications, e.g., Outlook. 
• Excellent organizational skills with strong attention to detail with low errors on processed work.
• Ability to form productive customer relationships. Possesses an upbeat and positive attitude in the workplace. 
• Solid written and verbal communication skills including editing work for spelling and grammar, presenting numerical data effectively, and able to read and interpret complex written information.
• Ability to work with and maintain confidential information and consistently exercise good judgment dealing with sensitive issues is required.
• Ability to demonstrate dependability to meet strict deadlines regarding job postings and interview schedules. Ability to work under time pressure with a commitment to completing task on time without sacrificing quality.  Demonstrates a professionalism to solicit feedback to improve own work performance. 
• Ability to demonstrate adaptability to changes in the work environment including learning new processes, managing competing demands and multiple tasks/priorities, and dealing with frequent change or unexpected events in a fast-paced environment with frequent interruptions.
• Ability to work with minimal supervision.
• Ability to maintain a regular and predictable attendance record to provide the desired level of customer service, in addition to working flexible hours and overtime as needed.
• Ability to perform legal research using LexisNexis/Westlaw.

Compensation

The hourly range for the position is $22.00 - $39.50. For a list of benefits, click here.
 

Working conditions and physical efforts

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each job duty and responsibility satisfactorily. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform job duties and responsibilities.

• Interacts with many types of people which can be stimulating yet demanding and stressful.
• Frequently works under externally imposed deadlines with expected interruptions to the workflow making it challenging to anticipate the nature and volume of work to perform.
• The position requires an individual to sit for long periods of time. The noise level in the work environment is typical of an office environment. The position requires an individual be able to talk on the telephone and work on a computer.  Visual acuity and repetitive motion may be associated with this position.
• Occasional contact with members of all Grinnell Mutual divisions as the first point of contact in many situations.
• Occasional contact with vendors, regulatory agencies, and customers throughout operating area.   

This job description is not intended to describe, in detail, the multitude of tasks that may be assigned, but rather to give the employee a general sense of the responsibilities and expectations of the position. As the nature of the business demands change, so too may the job duties and responsibilities.

Grinnell Mutual is an Equal Opportunity Employer in accordance with applicable state and federal laws.