What The Role Is
You will assist the Legal Service Officers in the Legal Aid Bureau in litigation work. You will also take part in projects and initiatives involving improvements to work processes and organisational effectiveness.
What You Will Be Working On
Your responsibilities include:
*Litigation work*
a) interviewing applicants on the legal issues facing them,
b) ascertaining the applicant's financial means and assessing their needs,
c) recording statements from legal aid applicants and extracting relevant information and facts, and referring them to social service help, if necessary, obtaining and assessing evidence to support the applicants’ cases,
d) exploring options with the applicants and the parties involved to reach an amicable agreement, if possible, and
e) drafting legal documents and filing court documents.
What We Are Looking For
Key Competencies Required:
- [Litigation Support]: Prepare high quality and accurate first drafts of court papers for standard cases, to be submitted to the legal officer for vetting, and thereafter to the Court within required timeline
- [Legal Case Management]: Taking instructions and relaying advice between applicant and legal officer and generally acting as a liaison for them. Doing the necessary to progress the file, including document drafting, searches, communicating with relevant third parties, affirmation of affidavits, etc.
- [Case negotiations]: Assisting the applicant to negotiate with the other party, to resolve disputes in an amicable manner
To be successful in this role, you must have/be:
- A highly motivated individual who can work under pressure
- Ability to multi-task and manage multiple tasks and deadlines
- Strong writing skills, prior experience in investigative work, report writing and legal drafting will be an advantage
- Ability to communicate and collaborate well with stakeholders
- Good customer service skills
- As the role requires the incumbent to converse and take instructions from Mandarin-speaking stakeholders, candidates will need to speak and read Mandarin with reasonable fluency. Candidates who speak a dialect in addition to Mandarin will be an advantage
Successful candidates will be appointed on a 1-year contract in the first instance, subject to renewal.