ILSPA’s Single Subject Legal Advanced Level courses are offered to Legal Secretaries who are looking to gain an in-depth understanding of one particular area of law, and acquire some advanced skills at a Paralegal level. In order for ILSPA to assess your understanding of the law, you are required to submit assignments in essay form.    

To start with, it’s a good idea to define what an essay is. If you were to look up the word in a dictionary, or even online generally, you would find a variety of meanings such as “a piece of formal writing which discusses a particular issue, situation or problem”.

This month we are considering a further push by the government to make the conveyancing process quicker and cheaper. Currently the home buying process takes, on average, between three and four months from the date an offer is accepted until the transaction is completed. Part of the reason it takes this amount of time is because buyers and sellers can struggle to communicate basic initial information. In addition, this failure to communicate well can affect the number of transactions that fail to reach the completion stage. 

The new year is traditionally a time for reflection and resolutions. Many of us will be looking back at the previous year and thinking about which areas of our personal and professional lives we would like to improve in the coming one. And why not? The new year can be a fantastic excuse to revaluate our goals and consider how we would like to work on our skillset.

There are many avenues you can go down to secure a job as a Legal Secretary. You can register on a jobs website such as ILSPA’s Legal Secretary Jobs Board and apply for positions, you can register with a recruitment agency to find a suitable role, or you can contact law firms and send a speculative application. The latter option can be a much more direct and quicker route to getting a job.

Here is a selection of vacancies from our Legal Secretary Jobs Board this month:

Immigration Law Legal Secretary – Chapman Legal Recruitment Ltd   

Location: Blackburn

Salary: £18,000  

Chapman Legal Recruitment Ltd has a new opportunity for an experienced Legal Secretary to work with our award-winning client based in Blackburn, Lancashire. Your role will be to provide comprehensive secretarial support to the Immigration Department.

View the full job description here:

https://www.institutelegalsecretaries.com/jobs/candidate/job/136742/

Legal Administrator – Kennedys 

This month we are returning to the topic of no-fault divorce. When we last wrote about this, we examined the sad case of Mrs Tini Owens who was not given permission to divorce her husband despite it being an entirely loveless marriage.

In the Owens v Owens Supreme Court case from July 2018, the current failings of the system were highlighted. The Supreme Court ruled in July that the 68-year-old could not divorce her husband and escape her loveless marriage until a period of five years had elapsed. She and her husband, Hugh Owens, had been living separate lives since 2015. Mrs Owens will have to stay married to her husband until they had been separated for five years before she will be allowed to divorce him.

This month ILSPA has the pleasure of catching up with a former student of ours, Melinda Toth. Melinda enrolled for our Legal Secretaries Diploma course last year and after successfully completing her qualification in early 2018, went on to secure her very first Legal Secretary role not long after with MW Solicitors. We had a few questions for Melinda about how she found her qualification, and what advice she would give to recent graduates of the course when starting their Legal Secretary job search.  

What was the reason you decided to train to become a Legal Secretary?

On 8 November, the 7th annual PA of the Year awards took place at the prestigious Ivy Restaurant in London. Hosted by SecsintheCity – the UK’s only job site dedicated to Personal and Executive Assistants – the ceremony recognises and champions the very best talent and achievements in the industry.

We asked Joyce Dadzie, Legal EA at progressive firm Axiom and winner of the Outstanding Achievement award, to shine a light on her career thus far and give us a rundown of the glamorous awards ceremony.

Q: How did you become an EA?

Chelsey Newsom, manager and specialist legal recruiter at Sellick Partnership, provides the inside scoop on how to make recruitment consultants love your CV.

Imagine receiving 100 applications for a job vacancy, and having to read the CV and cover letter attached to each. Sound exhausting? Welcome to the world of the legal recruiter!

A recruiter’s job is to match the right candidate with the right employer, and they are often looking for a particular set of skills and experiences, based on a specific job specification. To even get a look in, your CV needs to hit the sweet spot with your consultant, as they can make or break your job search.

There are a few things that all recruiters dislike, so take note of these points to ensure your CV goes to the top of the pile.

As you progress your career as Legal PA and start to work with more senior fee earners, you may find yourself faced with the prospect of working for a Partner who is notorious for being “difficult”.

We’ve all heard horror stories of Secretaries and PAs leaving the office in tears, but has the fear of this happening to you ever put you off from taking that step up you have always dreamed of? Or perhaps you have recently been assigned a new Partner and it’s just not working?

If so, here are some tips on how to overcome these fears and crack a difficult boss.

Have an open mind