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Working As A Legal Secretary In A Small Practice.

Working as a legal secretary can be extremely rewarding, as well as being varied day-to-day and offering good opportunities for career development.

With plenty of different areas of law to work in and various sizes of solicitors practices as potential employers, there is a lot of choice for those thinking of becoming a legal secretary.

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Family-Run Firm.

It can therefore be a little daunting trying to decide what sort of direction you want to take your career in this
respect.

In this, the first of two pieces on the profession, we give those who have already enrolled on a legal secretary course, or are considering doing so, an idea of what it is like to work in different types of company.

Jo Turki is a legal secretary at
Steadmans Solicitors, a small, family-run practice in Tunbridge Wells.

Husband and wife team Gerry and Geoff set up the practice in 1995.

Both had worked for other law firms in the town for around 15 years prior to launching their own business.

Gerry and Geoff are the only fee earners in the company and work in conjunction with their team of legal secretarial staff and assistants.

They offer a personal service, dealing with all legal matters themselves.

The company deals with the areas of buying, selling and remortgaging residential property, commercial and development property transactions, probate, wills and powers of attorney.

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Importance Of Training.

Ms Turki is part of a team that has to ensure that Gerry and Geoff's administrative needs are met so that they can concentrate on legal work.

Her day-to-day job involves many of the usual tasks that a legal secretary would be expected to perform.

"Basically, it's audio typing, telephone calls, photocopying, scanning, all those sort of admin things, making appointments. But the bulk of it is actually typing," she said.

Ms Turki explained that legal secretary courses are important for getting a job within the profession.

"I did a course many years ago. I think you need to have that and also have quite a fast typing speed," she explained.

Ms Turki said that the required average speed is about 55 or 60 words per minute.

She recommended that those thinking of going on legal secretary courses make sure they achieve this to demonstrate to employers.

The skills learned on an audio typing course are also particularly important, Ms Turki explained, saying that the budding legal secretary needs to demonstrate that they have such skills.

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Variety And Diversity.

Ms Turki said the advantage of working in a small firm where there is a variety of different legal services provided means that the job is more diverse.

"I prefer it because there's more interest," she explained.

"It depends what law you're actually dealing with," she continued.

"Some are much more interesting than others. Some involve very short cases and some can go on for years, where you can get a lot of involvement in it.

"When it comes to moving between small and large companies, Ms Turki believes the ease of switching jobs in the industry is dependent on the area of law you want to go into.

"If you were going to a specific area of law that you have not done before, I imagine they would want some kind of experience," she said.

Having said that, Ms Turki found that when doing temporary work in London, she was able to transfer the skills she learned on legal secretary courses to different areas of the law.

"I have temped in London before and done various types of law, going from one type to the other, and it's been quite easy just to slip in. It's a case of having to pick it up quickly and get on with it," she explained.

So what is it about the job that Ms Turki likes best?

"It's always very busy, so you've always got something to do," she confirmed.

In a small firm like Steadmans, there is so much going on that there is little time to get bored, she insisted.

Learn To Be A Legal Secretary At Pitman Training.

At Pitman Training in London's Notting Hill and High Holborn, we have trained hundreds of people to be legal secretaries and have built up such a good reputation among employers that we can confidently claim our training is "the next best thing to experience."

Our Legal Secretarial Diploma programme is nationally recognised as proof of a student's practical ability to do the job and as a result, many of our students walk right into their first legal jobs before they have even completed the programme.

Our diploma programme is designed to teach you all the typing and Microsoft Office skills you'll need for the general secretarial part of the job and then you take 2 or 3 specialised legal secretarial modules to complete your studies.

These include an introduction to being a legal secretary, civil litigation, company law, conveyancing, criminal law, family law and wills & probate.

You can also take these as single subjects if you don't need to earn the diploma.

The great thing about all of our courses is that you can start at any time - there's no waiting for term to start.

And you choose when to study during our long opening hours:

Monday- Thursday 09:00-20:00; Fridays 09:00-16:30 and Saturdays 10:00-16:00.

We always encourage potential students to visit us to get advice from one of our friendly course advisors and also to sample the courses, free.

That way you can be sure that you're making the right decisions about studying for your future career.

To arrange your visit, just call us on:

Notting Hill -
020 7792 5214

High Holborn -
020 7025 4700

Or contact us by email.

We're looking forward to hearing from you!