Assistant Family Solicitor

Our client a extremly regarded top 500 law firm in central london are looking for an assistant solicitor within family law. The ideal candidate will have 2-5 years PQE and be able to work on a diverse caseload without supervision.

Day to day tasks

Meeting to advise clients (as an assistant to a director or senior associate in the case of new clients, or independently in the case of existing clients) in relation to matters concerning:

• Divorce;
• Financial proceedings in divorce;
• Arrangements concerning children i.e. contact, residence, maintenance;
• Pre and post nuptial and civil partnership agreements; and
• Matters of domestic violence and protection of children.

• Advising clients by email, letter and telephone as to the merits of their case, strategy and practical arrangements concerning family disputes throughout our involvement;

• Dealing with day to day inter-partes correspondence by email, letter and telephone to include negotiations;

• Drafting and issuing divorce and Judicial Separation petitions;

• Drafting pre and post nuptial agreements, pre and post civil partnership agreements and cohabitation agreements;

• Drafting applications, witness statements, draft orders, consent orders, without prejudice offers and parenting agreements;

• Drafting monthly expense budgets for maintenance pending suit applications and statements of need;

• Researching points of law and family procedure;

• Keeping up to date with changes and developments in the law;

• Instructing joint and singly appointed experts in the course of proceedings and in compliance with the Family Procedural Rules;

• Compiling, processing and assessing our clients financial disclosure and the disclosure received in exchange from the other party and raising enquiries in relation to omissions, anomalies and further disclosure required;

• Extensive research into business interests of clients or their spouses in order to assist our client’s case, including for the purposes of applications for maintenance pending suit, preparing financial disclosure for our client or compiling questionnaires on the spouse’s financial disclosure. This includes research of publicly available information, including reviewing corporate filings and public listing documents, analysing corporate annual reports, financial statements and stock exchange particulars and preparing corporate groups structure charts;

• Liaising with third party investigative firms, where appropriate, to provide supplementary international analysis on undisclosed assets. Drafting confidentiality agreements and letters of engagements on behalf of our clients;

• Researching potential new clients and their spouses for initial client meetings so as to be fully prepared to provide advice;

• Preparing detailed instructions to Counsel and indexed bundles, with an indication of our preferred approach and specific queries with regard to strategy;

• Attending Conference with Counsel and raising important issues of the case so as to adopt the best possible strategy for the client;

• Arranging, preparing for and attending Court hearings in the Principal Registry and the High Court;

• Appearing on behalf of the client before the District Judge of the day at the Principal Registry in relation to urgent applications to the Court;

• Taking detailed typed notes of all meetings, telephone calls, hearings and conferences with Counsel;

• Preparing cost estimates for clients at the outset of their matter and throughout our involvement;

• Ensuring that our bills stay within our estimates in our preparation of our bills and providing client’s with a detailed breakdown of their costs;

• Preparing statements of costs in advance of Court hearings; and

• Assisting with the marketing of the firm including the preparation of material for the website, articles for the press and attending marketing and business development events on behalf of the firm.