Legal Executive and Support Staff Lunchtime Series 2022
The key to any successful organisation is their legal executive and support staff. Building on the success of our last series, gain valuable and practical insights to develop excellence and resilience in your career. Examine key time management techniques & valuable Microsoft skills. Learn to deal with different communication styles and how to build and maintain a healthy level of confidence and self-esteem in the workforce. WEB226N35
Description
Attend and earn 4 CPD units in Professional Skills
This program is applicable to practitioners from all States & Territories
If you register for the full series as a live online product after the date of an individual session, you will be sent the recording for the sessions that have passed. Alternatively, you can register for individual sessions by following the links below.
*This seminar series is also suitable for Junior Lawyers
Session 1
Wednesday, 22 June 2022
Legal Executives and support staff deal with multiple tasks, priorities, and deadlines. You’ll gain valuable insights, tips, and practical takeaways to take your skills in file management to a new level to allow you to deal with deadlines and competing priorities proficiently. WEB226N35A
Chair: Tanya Burns, Practice Manager, Nicholas O’Donohue & Co
1.00pm to 2.00pm File Management for Legal Executives, Paralegals and Administration Staff
- General creation and file management
- Attention to detail
- Dealing with multiple tasks: tips and common traps
- Time management skills: dealing with multiple tasks, deadlines and competing priorities
- How to keep ahead of your To Do List
- How to prioritize and manage your workload
- Dealing with workload issues and knowing when to speak up
- Clarifying priorities: how to do it
- Billing: The importance of effective billing
- Understanding why you bill and what to bill?
- Different types of billing: fixed fees vs hourly time billing
- Different types of billing arrangements: speculative, credit client, tender clients
- How to record your activity / your solicitors’ activity
- How to prepare a client’s bill
- Common traps
- Conflict of interests
- What constitutes a conflict of interest?
- Identifying a potential conflict of interest
- Communicating a conflict when we cannot say that
- Client privacy and confidentiality
Presented by Leica Gilbert, Hub/Practice Executive, Team Lead, Ashurst
Register here for Session 1 only
Session 2
Wednesday, 20 July 2022
Legal Executives and support staff are often forced to learn skills in Microsoft Word, Outlook, and Excel with little, if any formal training. This session, tailored for legal executives and support staff, delivers what you need to hit the road running and gives a valuable update for those with experience in these areas. WEB227N35B
Chair: Tanya Burns, Practice Manager, Nicholas O’Donohue & Co
1.00pm to 2.00pm Microsoft Word, Outlook, and Excel: Practical Skills for Legal Executives and Support Staff
This practical skills session will address some of the common traps and provide many helpful tips for legal support staff when they are working with Microsoft Word, Outlook and Excel spreadsheets.
Presented by Jill Simpson, Practice Manager and Rebecca Pyers, Heinz Law
Register here for Session 2 only
Session 3
Wednesday, 17 August 2022
Key to communicating in your team, and with different stakeholders in the workplace, is to understand how to change your communication style to get your message across in a clear and concise manner. You’ll learn valuable tools to allow you to effectively communicate with different communication styles at any time. WEB228N35C
Chair: Tanya Burns, Practice Manager, Nicholas O’Donohue & Co
1.00pm to 2.00pm Building Skills and Tools to Effectively Deal with Different Communication Styles
- Understanding your own preferred communication style
- Being aware of different communication styles and how to work best with them
- How to effectively get your ideas and thoughts across
- Keys to communicating within your team and other stakeholders
- Developing open and effective communication with all stakeholders
- Managing difficult clients and self-represented parties
Presented by Lara Wentworth, Principal, Lara Wentworth Wellness and Performance Coach
Register here for Session 3 only
Session 4
Wednesday, 14 September 2022
You’ll learn what it takes to grow, maintain, and develop a healthy level of confidence and self-esteem that will propel your career and support you while working in teams and with different stakeholders. WEB229N35D
1.00pm to 2.00pm Building and Maintaining your Confidence and Self-Esteem
An experienced panel will share their wisdom, experience, and valuable insights into how to maintain a healthy level of confidence and self-esteem throughout your career and steps to take to avoid losing it when mistakes happen.
Panellists:
Melissa Lyon, Executive Director, Hive Legal
Lara Wentworth, Principal, Lara Wentworth Wellness and Performance Coach
Register here for Session 4 only
Presenters
Tanya Burns
Tanya has over 25 years’ experience in legal business management and has worked in law firms since 1977. Tanya takes a holistic approach to management with a keen focus on achieving best outcomes for our people and our clients. She completed her Masters of Administration (Distinction) at RMIT in 2014. Tanya is a member of ALPMA (Australasian Legal Practice Management Association) and sits on the Victorian Branch Committee (Treasurer) and the Governance Committee. She is a co-convener of the Small Firms Management Group and enjoys contributing to the peak organisation for Legal Practice Management. Tanya is a keen traveller (pre-Covid) and enjoys spending time with good friends and her dog. She also loves watching her AFL team win (and lose) at the MCG.
Leica Gilbert
Leica Gilbert is the Hub/Practice Executive for Ashurst and has over 20 years of experience in the legal industry. Starting out her career with a seven-year stint in a Canberra law firm, Leica moved into a number of different roles including office junior, mortgage clerk and legal assistant. Following a move to Sydney, Leica joined a top tier law firm where she spent 13 years initially staring as a legal assistant, later moving into a floor coordinator role and then State Practice Administrator. During this time she also completed a Degree in Legal and Justice Studies via correspondence. Following a career break from 2009 to 2012 when she spent time in pursuit of equestrian goals, Leica returned to the legal field and moved into her current role. Being a legal support manager provides an opportunity to contribute to delivering high quality client service through working with the legal support team. Leica derives great satisfaction from working with a diverse team and helping members to grow, learn and achieve their goals, whether these are personal or firm-based.
Lara Wentworth
Lara is a certified coach with the International Coaching Federation (ICF) who specialises in coaching members of the legal profession. She helps lawyers to overcome barriers and create remarkable change in their performance, career and life. She’s passionate about supporting lawyers to enhance their leadership skills and develop and maintain a healthy mindset so they can build resilience and flexibility to manage the demands and pressures of legal practice and thrive in their careers and lives. Lara is former Partner in Family Law with a career spanning almost 20 years and involving Business Development, Leadership and Training, Coaching and Learning and Development. Being a Master Practitioner in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), Lara is equipped with knowledge, skills and experience to really help clients be in charge of their minds and therefore their results. Some areas of expertise: Breaking though limiting beliefs; Enhancing and building resources; Imposter Syndrome; Stress management; Career development.
Melissa Lyon
Melissa is a Business Development and Innovation specialist committed to assisting professional services organisations develop and utilise client focussed and human centred skills through design thinking. To do this she draws on many years of experience in legal practice, including as a partner of a law firm. She has also held senior business development roles, including managing BD teams and leading numerous projects and programs at a top tier legal firm. Melissa is now a non-practising principal of Hive Legal, an innovative NewLaw firm which has disrupted the legal profession by introducing value pricing, truly flexible work practices and technology based solutions for its clients. Working in this innovative environment has inspired Melissa to develop a very different approach to innovation programs based on a design thinking framework and the power of purpose (HiveThinkP). She is a skilled facilitator and assists clients to develop human centred projects through interactive workshops and design sprints. Melissa is committed to sharing her experiences and insights with the profession especially those who are new to it. She is also a strong advocate for those with skills other than legal and the vital roles that they play in the legal profession. She is a member of the Centre for Legal Innovation’s Advisory Board, Distinguished Fellow of the Centre for Legal Innovation (Design Thinking), Individual Finalist – Lexis Nexis Janders Dean Legal Innovation Index 2018, Winner – Australian Law Awards, Business Development Professional of the Year 2017 and Innovator of the Year 2020.