Have you ever authorised a payment from your bank account with a PIN, checked off an “I agree” box on a website or acknowledged delivery of a package by signing with a stylus on the delivery man’s electronic pad? The chances are that most of us have done all of those things within the past few weeks. Every time we did so, we were “e-signing” a contract or other document. In fact, as I’ll make clear shortly, we were not only e-signing but also “digitally signing” — and yes, there is a difference between the two. But whichever way you do it, signing documents without a traditional pen has become an integral part of modern life.

It won’t have escaped your attention that your boss’s continuing professional development (CPD) obligations have changed quite dramatically over the past couple of years. From a mandatory 16 hours per year, the minimum annual learning requirement for solicitors has been reduced to zero, and CPD has been replaced by “continuing competence”. When the rules for your boss have been relaxed, you may question the importance of CPD for yourself. CPD, however, remains one of the biggest opportunities for all Legal Secretaries and PAs.

Taking a set amount of CPD every year increases your skill set, gives you more content for your CV and probably will enhance your earning power. But there’s also the more straightforward pleasures of being able to understand more about the background of your job and reviving your interest in your work when you’re feeling a bit jaded. 

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

Family Law Secretary – Acorn Law North West Ltd

Location:  Manchester

Salary:  £21,000

Closing Date: 23/08/16

The role is to be a Secretary within a small team of secretaries working for some of the best Family Law Solicitors in the North West whose regional, national and global client bank range from persons earning £60,000 plus pa to high net worth Captains of Industry, Media stars, sporting stars and personalities. Some clients are self- made entrepreneurs worth hundreds of millions of pounds and others are landed gentry.

View the full job description here: 

Whether you work for a big firm or a small one, you’ve probably noticed a renewal of interest in money laundering issues on the part of your principals in recent months. The Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA) has made money laundering one of its key priorities this year, and has already carried out a number of inspections of money laundering procedures in bigger firms, not always it appears with results considered satisfactory. The SRA’s initiative will be followed later this year by new money laundering regulations in the UK, which will create additional responsibilities on solicitors to find out who is in control of suspect companies or trusts, and to prevent lawyers (among others) being used to facilitate terrorist financing. All in all, this is a good time to refresh your memory on the basic principles of the money laundering rules, and where necessary to ask for further training and guidance.

Frances discovered that her marriage had ended at a neighbour’s party. She was chatting with a lively group of people, amongst whom was George. George, as Frances knew, worked on the support staff of a legal firm specialising in high net worth divorces. George did not know Frances and they hadn’t been introduced. Another person in the group directed George’s attention across the room to Hugh, who as it happened was Frances’ husband. Before Frances could lay claim to him, however, George casually remarked, “Oh yes, I know Hugh, he’s a client of ours.” This was news to Frances, and it didn’t take much time for her to work out that Hugh could only be consulting a divorce solicitor in secret for one reason.

Heuristics are rules intended to help you solve problems.  When a problem is large or complex, and the optimal solution is unclear, applying a heuristic allows you to begin making progress towards a solution even though you can’t visualize the entire path from your starting point.

Suppose your goal is to climb to the peak of a mountain, but there’s no trail to follow.  An example of a heuristic would be:  Head directly towards the peak until you reach an obstacle you can’t cross.  Whenever you reach such an obstacle, follow it around to the right until you’re able to head towards the peak once again.  This isn’t the most intelligent or comprehensive heuristic, but in many cases it will work just fine, and you’ll eventually reach the peak.

The Criminal Court System of the United Kingdom is widely regarded as being one of the most complicated in the world. The main reason for this is that it was not designed all in one go, but rather it expanded, adapted and developed over the course of more than 1,000 years. To further complicate matters, the four individual nations which make up the United Kingdom have 3 different legal systems between them, meaning that there are 3 different criminal justice systems operating within the borders of one country. For now, we will only focus on the system which is in place in England and Wales.

Divorce proceedings are often messy and complicated as couples and their lawyers seek a ‘fair’ division of assets and wealth accumulated during the course of a marriage. The more straightforward cases end in a 50/50 split of assets and wealth, but different circumstances call for different rulings. A decision made recently by the Court of Appeal has made headlines because it ordered a consultant to surrender all of his accumulated wealth to his ex-wife. This is a completely unorthodox situation, but it was deemed to be the fairest option for the ex-wife and children involved.

With hundreds of Twitter accounts dishing out the latest law updates, it can be difficult to separate the useful from the useless. Twitter has masses of info, advice and tips to offer you - simply searching ‘#law’ will generate thousands, maybe even millions, of results. Click on the right accounts though, and you could be on to a winner - reading all the latest law ‘need-to-knows’ and storming up the legal-professional ladder.

However, to save you from the ceaseless searching, we’ve teamed up with Surrey-based solicitor Barlow Robbins to help scope out every nook and cranny of the Twittersphere and unearthed the best law-based accounts to help you succeed and flourish in your law career. Grab your mobile, tablet or laptop and have a gander at these top tweeters:

Criminal Law and Practice is not a subject that is included in the Legal Secretaries Diploma course, and the reason for this is that when the course was first devised, it was geared to the most common areas of law that are practiced in the average firm of solicitors, as this would give the student the best chance for finding a job.  However, Criminal Law and Practice is provided by the Institute as a Higher Diploma Course and it is a very interesting area to work in.