Newport, Wales, United Kingdom
I am an articulate, friendly and self motivated leader who is adept at getting to the heart of what motivates people. I have 18 years experience of the legal sector which led me into training and development with me specialising in legal and business administration apprenticeships for the last 5 years. I have extensive management experience and a passion for coaching. I particularly enjoy supporting people in their personal development and am a creative trainer, always looking for a way to personalise lessons to the learners interests and skills. I have excellent interpersonal skills which have made me an extremely effective negotiator and a powerful yet likeable advocate. These skills have also benefited me in relationship management as I am able to build relationships based on honesty and respect with people of diverse backgrounds and experiences. I have recently undertaken the PRINCE2 foundation course to allow me to develop my project management skills as this is an area that has interested me for some time and I have been involved in ensuring the success of multiple projects, including setting up a specialist niche unit with an existing law firm. I have a 'can do' attitude and enjoy finding innovative solutions to challenges. I am currently looking for a management or leadership position and am open to opportunities outside of legal and training sectors as I feel I have a large amount of transferable skills that would benefit any company.
I manage the European Social Fund (ESF) operations delivered across South East Wales and led by Newport City Council as the lead beneficiary on behalf of the established joint beneficiaries, including the Inspire 2 Achieve, Inspire 2 Work, Journey 2 Work and Skills@Work operations. I am responsible for managing the Central Lead Team and reporting to the Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO) on all aspects of the operations.
I am responsible for supervising the training and assessment of trainees and apprentices who are undertaking a wide variety of courses at different levels including: Paralegal, Chartered Legal Executive, Licenced Conveyancer, Conveyancing Technician, Legal Administration And Business Administration Standard Apprenticeships. It is my duty to ensure that training is carried out professionally, in the best interests of the trainee and their employer, and that it is compliant with the requirements of the external examination boards and regulators. This involves: liaising with students and employers to develop training plans, visiting learners in their workplace to provide training; assessing students against the set criteria and invigilating exams. I have excellent knowledge of ESFA funding rules as well as experience of OFSTED inspection. In the last inspection my students were contacted and provided positive feedback on my performance, helping Damar to maintain their good rating overall. I am also involved in the business development aspect of the company. I have regular meetings with clients in order to carry out gap analysis and to ensure that we are meeting their needs and to help develop our business as well as to increase awareness of the apprenticeships that we can offer. This has led to several employers changing apprenticeships for their employees following discussions with myself, resulting in more profit for the business. I am also responsible for second line assessment of more junior trainers work to ensure it is accurate and meets the required quality standards. A large part of this role involves providing feedback to ensure that they are providing the best possible service and well as providing continuing development and improvement. I also have experience in providing advice on safeguarding issues, resulting in students obtaining the support they require to help them successfully complete their apprenticeship programme.
I was responsible for managing a specialist Credit Hire team. This included training new fee earners in credit hire as well as providing specialist training to the whole personal injury department. I was also responsible for the personal development of those in my team. To this end I developed their personal development plans, undertook monthly 1-2-1 meetings to assess progress and undertook coaching and mentoring where needed. It was my duty to ensure that the cases being dealt with by my team were being proactively progressed and that the work is of expected quality. Part of this performance management included reviewing financial and other MI reports to ensure that each member of the team were meeting their targets and reporting on these to our directors and shareholders. Due to initiatives I put in place my team regularly exceeded their individual targets and so achieved bonus payments. As part of my role I dealt with complaints. This required me to undertake investigations, prepare reports and respond to clients. Where clients were not satisfied with the outcome of an investigation I would then liaise with the Legal Ombudsmen and Solicitors Regulatory Authority. I also undertook disciplinary investigations which required review of work, formal interviewing, liaising with Human Resources and preparing reports of findings.
In this role I had a case load of approximately 200 litigated cases at any one time. I was responsible for liaising with the client, assessing liability and quantum of claims, negotiating with the defendant’s legal representatives, drafting proceedings and witness statements, instructing counsel, dealing with directions and costing of files.
I started at Lyons Davidson as a fee earner dealing with personal injury claims. I quickly progressed within the company to become the designated advocate for the South of England. This involved me travelling to courts throughout this region in order to make applications and represent clients in hearings. As an advocate I was also responsible for providing written advice on liability and quantum to other fee earners. When the firm decided to open a new office in Manchester I was asked to relocate to support this development. I dealt with the recruitment and training of new fee earners, acting as the senior litigator for the department. In this role I was also responsible for client relations with a new insurer client.