Litigation Paralegal

Position - Litigation Paralegal

Reporting to - Principal Solicitor

Location - Energy House, Crawley

Business Unit and Department - HR Directorate, Legal Department

Job Purpose

The main purpose of this full-time position is to provide assistance to the Principal Solicitor and Legal Team in the undertaking of legal matters in the cable damage litigations department. All matters dealt with are on the instruction and under the supervision of Principal Solicitor.

Key Responsibilities

Indicative Legal tasks

• Managing a case load of third party damage claims and theft in conveyance claims, ranging from small claims multi-track matters under supervision of the Principal Solicitor.

• Manage the pre-action process of a claim including formal pre-action correspondence, evidence gathering and communicating with opponents.

• Assisting Principal Solicitor with claims against the Company.

• Preparation of court proceedings in relation to damage claims including drafting particulars of claim, calculating relevant interest amount and period, raising court issue fee and lodging papers online. If appropriate, dealing with entry of judgement and registration of county court judgement with the high court including any relevant debtor letters.

• Maintaining digital case files during life of matters.

• Managing a court diary by inputting court deadline dates into litigation and relevant case handler diaries.

• Preparing witness statements for court proceedings, including, where necessary, attending witness interview and taking notes of interview.

• Instructing and working alongside counsel on matters.

• Preparation of court hearing bundles for court proceedings. Including drafting index and filing the bundle at court and serving them on other parties.

• Dealing with without prejudice negotiations.

Skills and Experience

• This post requires someone with experience of taking responsibility for, planning and executing a range of legal matters using independent judgement and communication skills under solicitor supervision;

• Flexibility of working hours and discretion are essential;

• A pro-active approach is essential;

• The person appointed will enjoy working as a team player, be effective at working on their own initiative and be used to meeting strict deadlines and prioritising workloads;

• A high level of organisation, influencing and communication skills is essential;

• Law Graduate with at least a 2:1 Honours Degree.

• A BTC qualification or experience of claims handling are desirable.

• IT Skills: Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, SAP and advanced in Microsoft Word. Extracting information from the internet with confidence and speed is also essential in this role;

• The person appointed should have a cheerful disposition and be able to deal constructively with demanding clients from across the business.

• Normal working hours are 09:00 to 17:30 with an hour for lunch

Salary approx. £38,000.

UK Power Networks is committed to a policy of equality in its employment practices and values a workforce that is representative of the customers we serve and the communities in which we work. We consider our people to be crucial to achieving success. We believe that it is important for our employees to strike a sensible balance between work and life outside work and will consider requests for working arrangements under the Work-Life Solutions process. Full details of the Equal Opportunities Policy and Work-Life Solutions can be found on the Human Resources intranet site.

UK Power Networks is committed to securing the highest standards of health and safety at work and of care for the environment. Applicants will be expected to have an appropriate level of understanding of the arrangements for health, safety and the environment that apply to this business and are required for this vacancy.

Health & Safety Responsibilities

Managers and supervisors carry both legal and company responsibilities for ensuring the health and safety of their employees, those under their control, and those who might be affected by the work undertaken, i.e. public, visitors and employees of other organisations. This includes briefing individuals working for them and ensuring there is the necessary understanding, competence and application of requirements to work safely and without harming the environment.

Employees are responsible for ensuring they fully understand the health and safety risks involved in their work activities and their responsibility to apply the controls needed to manage those risks to acceptable levels. Similarly where work activities can have an adverse impact upon the environment, and particularly where there are legal requirements, employees are responsible for understanding those impacts and the controls they must ensure are applied.