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Disputes Knowledge Management Paralegal

Disputes KM Paralegal sought to provide support to the firm’s global disputes lawyers.

The firm

HFW is a sector focused global law firm, with a dominant Disputes (Corporate/Commercial Litigation, International Arbitration, and Mediation) practice. We are also one of the most active firms in the English Commercial Court.  

We have over 600 lawyers working across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. We take a progressive approach to our roles in commercial business – thinking creatively and pragmatically to support our clients.

Whether we are solving complex issues within the construction, aviation or shipping industries, or providing advice across insurance, commodities and energy we are specialist lawyers here to add value to our clients. We think about the commercial solution first, and then underpin our advice with a solid foundation of legal expertise. Our Disputes practice and lawyers are embedded in our sectors and in our standalone HFW LITIGATION team.

The role

  • Disputes Knowledge Management Paralegal also supports ‘DISCOTECH’, the Disputes support unit led by the firm’s global Disputes Knowledge Counsel and sits within the KM team, but with a priority focus on supporting the Disputes practice and the Disputes support function at HFW, which includes an eDisclosure Projects Co-ordinator.
  • The litigation support function will seek to bring in-house some of the tasks currently outsourced to our preferred providers for eDisclosure and eBundles. This role will be a combined fee earning / non-fee earning role. It will assist with eg. the creation of matter eBundles, and will also support on Disputes KM tasks, as set out below.       
  • The KM team consists of nine KCs and two central KM Paralegals in the London office, one KC in the Hong Kong office and two in Australia. Our KCs are qualified solicitors, each with over 10 years’ fee earning experience in their respective areas.
  • The aim of the KM team at HFW is to ensure that, in line with the firm’s business strategy, the firm is able to offer technical excellence with efficient delivery, so as to provide clients with valued quality legal advice globally.  
  • This role will be to assist the Disputes KC in the support provided to all of the firm’s global Disputes lawyers, irrespective of the practice areas in which they sit, which include Dispute Resolution, Shipping, Aerospace, Insurance/Reinsurance, Energy & Resources, Construction, and Commodities legal sectors.    
  • This role carries more responsibility, variety, and autonomy than a conventional paralegal position.  The position offers opportunities to expand responsibilities and gain valuable career experience once the fundamentals of the role are well embedded.

Key responsibilities

Administrative responsibilities

  • Taking and preparing meeting minutes and action lists, managing follow-up actions.
  • Collation, preparation and analysis of documents, reports, spreadsheets in support of Disputes KM projects, eDisclosure, and technical training.
  • Providing telephone cover and dealing with internal and external telephone enquiries for the Disputes KC.
  • Any other ad hoc duties as may be required.

Disputes knowhow resource management

  • Profiling, indexing and filing hard and electronic copies of Disputes documents for knowhow databases, including using a knowhow classification system.
  • Creating and updating the Disputes intranet knowhow pages, including helping with formatting and maintaining key fee earner knowhow resources.  Once experience improves, can provide substantive input on these resources under the Disputes KC’s supervision.
  • Helping create Disputes KM resources (precedents, templates, checklists, etc.), following the firm’s system electronically profiling Disputes KM resources.
  • Helping with regular reviews of existing Disputes knowhow materials to determine relevance and usefulness and removal of out-of-date material.
  • Liaising with lawyers and PAs to assist with Disputes knowhow collation.
  • Summarising and reporting on Disputes intranet/KM resources usage statistics.

Disputes current awareness bulletin

  • Assisting with keeping the practice and clients up-to-date on Disputes technical and market developments, including:
    • Assisting the Disputes KC with the preparation of the firm’s monthly Global Knowhow Disputes Update (DRU) and International Arbitration Update (IAU), requiring close liaison with other teams (eg. Costs, and Risk) as appropriate, to identify items of interest (from journals, online resources, cases, etc.).  Prepare brief summaries of those items for the DRU, and use this as a base for the IAU, with close attention to clarity, consistency, and accuracy. 
    • Reviewing journals, online knowhow resources, legislation and cases and liaising with the Disputes KC and Research Hub to identify items of interest to Disputes fee earners and clients
    • Helping to prepare ad hoc summaries of key Disputes items for internal and external use.

Disputes marketing & business development

  • Assisting the Disputes KC with the preparation of bespoke client specific legal updates and reports as a “value add” service, and for BD purposes.
  • Drafting, proofing for sense and clarity, and making corrections as required under the Disputes KC’s supervision.
  • Supporting internal and external events
  • Assisting with the creation of Disputes specific reference guides, eg. the International Arbitration and Litigation Passports 
  • Analysing and reporting on data on article readership
  • Use of and analysis of data produced by Solomonic

Disputes training

  • Assisting with the implementation of internal global Disputes technical training programmes, including:
    • Liaising with the Disputes KC regarding speakers, dates, etc.
    • Liaising with the Learning & Development team, as necessary.
    • Regularly updating the Disputes intranet with training details and materials.
    • Regularly updating the central tracking spreadsheet for all sessions.
  • Managing the University of Law’s Disputes training programme for associates.
  • Assisting with ongoing fee-earner Disputes KM training and Disputes KM inductions for trainees and new joiners.
  • Collecting and uploading Disputes materials from clients and other external training sessions.

Disputes knowhow enquiries and legal research

  • Handling queries from lawyers across all groups and offices of the firm, responding directly to simple queries and liaising with the Disputes KC in order to respond to more complex queries.
  • Carrying out searches on the firm’s KM system and external knowledge resources for the Disputes KC and lawyers across all groups and offices of the firm.
  • Preparing research notes for the Disputes KC and fee earners and researching specific technical points to help answer queries from lawyers across all groups and offices of the firm.
  • Writing up notes of technical and practice points discussed at meetings and helping to add these to the maintained KM resources and bulletins where appropriate.

Funding Committee

  • Assisting the Disputes KC and the Funding Committee in:
    • the administrative tasks around the Committee, eg. arranging meetings, tracking funding agreements, updating the intranet site;
    • attending meetings and drafting minutes;
    • creating new NDAs, working with Risk.

DISCOTECH

  • Supporting the Disputes KC and where needed the eDisclosure Co-ordinator in:
    • the running of eDisclosure projects, including the collation and analysis of vendor reports and monitoring service levels of our vendors;
    • creation of internal eDisclosure guidance and process;
    • creating and monitoring of Master Service Agreements and NDAs for eDisclosure vendors;
    • creating eBundles;
    • assisting in the eBundle training of other paralegals;
    • creation of internal guidance.

Key skills & experience required

  • Degree.
  • Legal qualification (SQE/LPC/BVC or equivalent as a minimum).
  • An understanding and experience of English commercial litigation (including Civil Procedure Rules) and other forms of dispute resolution, eg. International Arbitration, and Mediation.
  • Ideally, previous experience of eDisclosure and eBundles, and DSARs. 
  • Excellent attention to detail, willingness to learn, and use of initiative.
  • Excellent legal research skills (including using online sources such as LexisNexis Butterworths, Westlaw, Practical Law) and preparing clear, concise research notes.
  • High level of IT proficiency – working knowledge of Microsoft Word and Excel, including styles, and hyperlinks.
  • SharePoint experience useful but not essential (training will be provided).
  • Ability to quickly assimilate and summarise information.
  • Excellent organisational and communication skills.
  • Ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously.

Additional information

Please note that this job description is not contractual, and may be amended periodically to meet the changing needs of the Firm.

HFW aims to ensure equality of opportunity, and we are actively working towards improving the diversity of our staff.  All applications will be considered only on merit and the applicant’s suitability to meet the requirements of the role.

HFW collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants to manage its recruitment process.  The firm is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations.  For information on how the firm will process your data, please see our Privacy Notice on our website (www.hfw.com/Privacy-Notice), in the section “What we collect and how we use it”.

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About us

HFW is a sector focused global law firm with a focus on construction, shipping, aerospace, commodities, energy and insurance. We have over 700 lawyers working across Australia, Asia, Europe, Middle East and the Americas. With a progressive approach to our roles in commercial business, thinking creatively and pragmatically to support our clients, we are dynamic, entrepreneurial and leaders in our specialist areas.
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