This is an exciting opportunity to work for one of the top law firms in the U.S.! Davis Wright Tremaine LLP is looking for an experienced Legal Assistant to join our Corporate and Business Transactions team in our Seattle office.
The Legal Assistant will provide and coordinate administrative and clerical support to attorneys and paralegals in the business transaction practices, supporting effective use of their time. This position requires an ability to work independently as well as in a team environment with timekeepers and staff members. Expertise supporting business transactions required. Additional experience mergers and acquisitions practices is a plus.
At Davis Wright Tremaine, you will find challenging assignments, opportunities for professional growth and community involvement, and a culture of inclusion. DWT fosters inclusiveness and authenticity. Regardless of position, everyone here has a voice and the support is unparalleled.
On a typical day you will: * Understand assigned timekeepers’ practice and clients * Extensive interaction with clients; acts as intermediary with clients and responds to client requests * Manage client billing process, including review and editing of pre-bills * Maintain up-to-date forms, including collaboration with other departments on templates * Check in regularly with attorney to ensure all aspects of any project are under control. Prompt as needed. Exercise careful judgment about when to ask for guidance * Assign appropriate tasks to other departments, and support staff. Follow up on status of all projects to ensure timely completion * Communicate clearly with all appropriate team members on project status * Set up data rooms for transactions; provide required information to IT for initial set up, organize data room structure, populate data room with required documents, communicate access information to data room participants, update and maintain data room, maintain due diligence/document production checklist in connection with data room documents * Identify and organize documents for closings of complex financing or acquisition transactions, prepare initial checklists, research possible forms of documents, manage formatting for uniformity across all documents * Assist with transaction closings; monitor and update checklists, organize documents and signature packets for execution, monitor status of documentation and organize final executed documents as received, review documents for completeness, maintain electronic record of final executed documents, organize documents for closing transcripts, produce and transmit closing transcripts, distribute stock certificates * Ensure that relevant documents are filed in the client’s minute book records and that equity ownership information is properly maintained * Docket reminders for annual corporate filings (e.g., stock plan registration) * Type, proofread, run comparisons, and edit correspondence, memoranda, agreements and other legal and business documents from notes, templates, drafts, or dictated text under time sensitive deadlines * Maintain attorney and client records. Maintain email and electronic records * Open new client and new matter files * Schedule and coordinate appointments, meetings and conference calls and maintain calendars * Answer, screen, and respond to phone calls * Open and route mail, attaching appropriate files and documents * Prepare and submit expense reimbursement reports and check requests * Make travel arrangements * Schedule conference rooms and arrange for food service and audio-visual equipment as needed * Assist fellow assistants and additional attorneys as needed * Notarize documents. Position may require assistant to become and maintain Washington Notary
Join us if you can:
* A minimum of three years’ experience as a legal assistant/secretary in a law firm environment is required. Expertise supporting business transactions, mergers and acquisitions practices is required * Ability to understand and follow work directions, manage multiple priorities and respond to urgent requests with minimal supervision * Ability to take initiative and ownership of projects and follow them through to completion, regardless of who is doing the work * Expertise in Microsoft Word and Outlook is essential. Must also be proficient in Adobe/Nuance, DocuSign, Excel and PowerPoint. Experience with Office 2016 and Windows 10 is preferred * Excellent keyboarding, grammar, spelling and proofreading skills * Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written, with clients, firm members, and other business contacts * Exceptional interpersonal and customer service skills, as well as the ability to handle stressful situations in a calm, composed manner * Ability to pay close attention to detail and be highly organized and accurate * Strong time management skills * Ability to work effectively in a team-oriented, service environment * A high school diploma or GED certification is required * Availability and willingness to work overtime as needed or requested
Who We Are
Davis Wright Tremaine LLP is an AmLaw 100 law firm with eight offices nationwide. We are relentlessly committed to client service and look for candidates who share that commitment. At DWT, client service means having empathy for each client’s and each lawyer’s work and personal pressures, business objectives, and legal needs; anticipating their needs; and having the capabilities and commitment to deliver what matters most to them.
What’s in it For You?
DWT offers competitive compensation in addition to ample benefits including but not limited to: * Choice of health and vision insurance plans * 2 paid volunteer days for qualifying community service work * Dental plan * Fertility and adoption benefit * Paid sabbatical after 13 years of service * Tuition reimbursement * Commuter benefits * Retirement contribution
Physical Requirements
While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to feel and reach with hands and arms and frequently required to sit, stand, walk and occasionally stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, color vision, depth perception and ability to adjust focus. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform essential job functions.
This job description intends to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by individuals assigned to this position. It is not intended to include all duties and responsibilities.
Davis Wright Tremaine LLP believes that embracing diversity and inclusion brings out the best of what each individual has to offer and inspires us to build strong and lasting connections with each other, our clients, and our communities. We are committed to promoting a diverse workforce and inclusive environment where every employee has the right to work in surroundings that are free from all forms of unlawful discrimination. It is our policy to hire, promote, transfer, terminate, and make all employment-related decisions without regard to an employee’s sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, or related medical condition), race, color, ancestry, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, religious creed, age, marital status, physical or mental disability, genetic information, medical condition, military condition, military or veteran status or any other basis prohibited by applicable local, state, or federal laws.
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About Davis Wright Tremaine LLP
The List that Shaped a Legacy
Davis Wright Tremaine is dedicated to providing excellent legal services, and delivering them in a manner customized to each client’s particular needs and preferences.
This commitment has remained intact for decades as the firm has grown across the nation and to China. Today, Davis Wright is a full-service firm with approximately 500 lawyers in nine offices on the east and west coasts of the United States and in Shanghai. We are recognized for excellence in a broad number of areas, with 89 of our attorneys across 31 practice areas cited as leaders in their fields in the most recent Chambers USA guide, and over 140 of our attorneys across 56 practice areas included in the 2015 edition of "The Best Lawyers in America."
Focused on the Future
While we honor and have great regard for our history, Davis Wright is focused on the future of providing legal services. We believe the future will reward those lawyers and firms that innovate and persist in tuning their services to the real-life, changing business needs of their clients. The ability to deliver customized excellence is based on listening to and understanding our clients, and being sufficien...tly flexible to adapt our approach to the client’s needs in the context of the particular situation in which we were hired. That involves talking with our clients, learning what their success measures are, and collaborating with them to ensure our service helps them accomplish those measures.
This always involves excellent lawyering but it also includes:
deep industry knowledge,
gains in efficiency in performing work that does not require a customized solution, or
the application of technology to reduce cycle time and improve quality.
How We Work with Clients
We use a number of techniques to ensure we understand our clients. We use client teams to enhance communication and collaboration among our lawyers, to advance our understanding of our clients’ business objectives, and to confirm with clients that our service model is aligned with their needs. Each year, we conduct dozens of face-to-face client service interviews, led by senior members of the firm, to solicit specific feedback on our lawyers and work, and to understand how, from the client’s perspective, we can improve. And, on a daily basis, we expect our lawyers to deliver value that includes not just excellent legal service but also business insight, user-friendliness, and flawless support.
We believe the way we work with clients is a distinctive feature of the firm and we make it a priority to reinforce its importance.
Teams That Collaborate
In terms of our services, we supplement depth and strength in the core legal functions of litigation, business transactions, intellectual property, and employment with nationally-recognized, broadly-based teams focused on a number of highly regulated industries—including communications, media, financial services, health care, energy, and hospitality. These teams collaborate effectively to provide a unified legal solution that is well-informed by the particular business and regulatory circumstances that influence our clients’ businesses and the legal work they need.
We focus on what we do extremely well. This means we will not be all things to all clients, but that they will place a high value on their relationship with Davis Wright.
