Some lawyers retain their own personal assistant (PA) on a full-time or part-time basis. If you wish to do so, simply supply your PA's name, address and email address to the Administration Team who will send out our standard Access and Support Agreement for execution and give you details of how to ensure the applicant has no criminal convictions. This is a required search and part of the cost of employing a PA.
You will need to supply your PA with a suitable laptop through our Set-up and Go service (as per the Getting Started Guide). PAs can access most of our systems and will be given their own email account but cannot action money movements in excess of £2,500 without the written permission of their principal expressly for each transfer. All payment requests they submit are sent to their principal by cc email, and money movements in excess of £2,500 require the principal to reply all' to that email to authorise the transfer. Actions of your PA are deemed to be your instructions to Central Office, and the rules and processes that apply to you apply equally to your PA.
On request, your PA can be given delegate access to your inbox and the ability to send emails on your behalf. You should therefore refrain from telling your PA any of your Keystone passwords or allowing them to send emails from your computer. Your PA will have a special secretarial view of Keyed-In. One of the benefits of this view is that your PA will be able to record your time for you in Tracker should you wish. That does mean, however, that your PA will not be able to record their own time in Tracker. Legal Assistants can record time in Tracker and can perform similar duties as your PA. We have higher entry criteria for a Legal Assistant. For further details discuss this with the Growth and Development Team and see the Growing Teams Guide.