We have a new vacancy for a Paralegal to join the award-winning Court of Protection team in Manchester, as our team and workload grows.

The Court of Protection department look after the property and financial affairs of individuals who lack mental capacity to do themselves.

The role will involve, but not limited to, assisting with the following:-

• Carrying out work on a broad range of property & financial affairs deputyship and some personal injury trust matters, arising from both personal injury and clinical negligence both currently in litigation as well as having settled, and/or from the Office of the Public Guardian panel and local authorities).
• Administrative and paralegal grade D work within a sub-team within the wider department. Supporting the solicitor file handlers (along with the other paralegals) with their cases.
• Making regular payments to clients and third parties, keeping accurate schedules of income and expenditure and cash management, forecasting future spending and creating and maintaining budgets.
• Dealing with utility bills and other household/everyday bills and invoices, verifying payee details, setting up bank accounts and cards for clients and consolidating bank accounts.
• Liaising with DWP, benefits agencies, banks, utility providers, pension or other income providers, local authority, social workers, NS&I and other financial institutions, any debtors, care homes, NHS, care providers, therapists/clinicians, case managers, and other professional bodies. 
• Day to day contact with and supporting clients, their families and care providers, dealing with their individual lifestyle requirements, providing practical advice and supporting and protecting their needs on a wide range of issues including financial planning, management of their funds and assets and care arrangements.

The successful candidate should be able to demonstrate: 

• 1 years’ experience in Court of Protection, or, professional role with transferable skills such as accounts, payroll, financial planning, tax, banking, administration or any role involving budgeting and processing of payments) with ‘life experience’ in the management of their own property and financial affairs.
• A commitment to excellent client care, court of protection work and helping vulnerable clients.
• A positive, can-do, professional attitude, resilience, and emotional intelligence.
• Strong work ethic, working to own initiative and showing good team working skills.
• Excellent IT skills with experience in Word, Excel and Outlook.
• Ability to communicate well orally and in writing, including dealing directly with clients when required.
• Strong attention to detail, organisational and administrative skills.
• Numerate.
• Ability to prioritise tasks efficiently and when to seek input/supervision.

The successful candidate would ideally be able to demonstrate the following (or will be trained over first 6 months in role):

• Commercial awareness (time recording, billing and cost proportionality).
• Understanding utility bills and payment of household/general outgoings.
• Basic understanding of mental incapacity and options for care funding.

The Department & work:

Our Court of Protection (CoP) department is nationally recognised as one of the largest, specialist and most diversified CoP teams in the country. All team members are experts, specialising solely in property and financial affairs CoP work, going above and beyond for their clients. Our team’s sustained growth of both caseload and team size as well as our client and staff retention is testament to our proven level of experience and success. With this comes ample opportunities for new starters’ personal development and progression, as well as gaining exposure to highly varied, interesting and complex CoP work.

The team work with almost all types of vulnerable adults, including those with the most profound injuries or illnesses and significantly reduced life expectancy. This includes mental health illness, learning difficulties age-related degenerative conditions such as dementia, acquired brain injuries, traumatic brain injuries, substance abuse, psychological injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, disabilities as a result of clinical or other negligence, birth injuries such as palsy and other cerebral hypoxia. Our deputy and PI trust appointments range from multifaceted, complex and high value matters- many of our appointments involve estates between £5 to 75 million, numerous pieces of litigation, business interests, complex jurisdictional issues in cross border disputes, financial abuse and reporting to the Court.

The team:

There are four deputies in the team- Megan Christie-Copeland, the Head of CoP department, Andrew Cusworth, an OPG Panel deputy specialising in cross-border, financial abuse and local authority deputyships and both Katherine Smith and Rebecca Brown, deputies specialising in deputyships for children and adults with multi-million-pound, personal injury/clinical negligence compensation awards. Both our COP department and our partners are ranked in both UK Chambers and Legal 500 as a top firm for CoP and we won awards for ‘COP team of the year’ nationally and regionally at the Manchester Legal Awards in 2022.

The department are dedicated members of numerous professional bodies, including; the Society of Trust and Estate (STEP) Practitioners and Solicitors for the Elderly (SFE), Court User Group (CuG), Law Society Private Client Section, the Association of Women Solicitors (AWS), Birmingham Solicitors’ Group (BSG), as well as being a founding member for the Professional Deputies Forum (PDF), and having a founding member, Vice Chair and Strategy and Operations Manager for the Court of Protection Practitioners’ Association (CoPPA).

A snapshot of team members’ feedback about their CoP department is: “Everyone is friendly, supportive and there’s great team camaraderie… Great breadth of knowledge and experience, everyone willing to assist and share their knowledge... Clients are clearly priority and at the forefront of everything the team does… What we have in this team is very special- it’s not the industry norm from the people to the standard of work…Brilliant team to work in…Great work and social life balance…Despite the size of the team we have that close team feeling and team spirit… We’re listened to and supported by the team leaders and managers… Warm and welcoming team ethos… Very open to sharing ideas and receptive to new ways of thinking… Great quality work, no two days are the same…”

If you would like to find out more about the Court of Protection team and the work that they do, please contact our Recruitment team at recruitment@jmw.co.uk

Working for JMW  

As well as a rewarding career, JMW offers its colleagues many other opportunities and benefits, including:

• A minimum of 25 days' annual leave (increasing with length of service) plus office closure between Christmas and New Year
• Employee Pension Scheme – SMART pension scheme
• Travel Insurance – covering you and eligible family members
• Death In Service - 3 x basic salary
• Private Medical Insurance (subject to opting in) and option of contributing to add eligible family members
• Income Protection - cover of up to 75% of salary
• Access to an interest free travel pass/parking loan
• A one-hour early finish, one Friday a month
• Two days a year to do charitable work, with a huge variety of events to get involved in
• The opportunity to participate in sports teams, hobby clubs, and social events
• Access to our Employee Assistance Programme and trained Mental Health First Aiders
• Annual promotions process open to all
• Work and employee referral schemes

More information including a full list of our benefits and company culture can be found on the careers home page, and via our social media channels – X, Instagram, LinkedIn.