Legal Administrative Assistant, Personal Injury

Vaturi & Cho LLP is a full-service law firm in North York serving clients across the Greater Toronto Area in personal injury, employment, commercial, real estate, criminal and immigration law. Our personal injury practice represents plaintiffs in motor vehicle accident, slip and fall, and long-term disability matters, including accident benefits claims before the Licence Appeal Tribunal and tort actions in the Superior Court of Justice. We are a close-knit team where assistants work directly with the lawyers on their files and see matters through from intake to resolution.

We are hiring a Legal Administrative Assistant to support our personal injury lawyers and law clerks. You will start on correspondence: drafting payment letters and request letters, writing to clients to confirm and advise them of their medical assessments, and following up with clinics and pharmacies until the records we have asked for actually arrive.

Two things matter most here. First, your English is strong, written and spoken. This job is letters and phone calls: the letters go out over the firm's name, and the calls are with clients, clinics, insurers and opposing counsel. Second, you have a year of office experience behind you. You do not need to have worked in a law firm. We will teach you the accident benefits process, the OCF forms and the LAT timelines. What we cannot teach is follow-through, attention to detail and the discipline to keep a long list of files on schedule, so that is what we are hiring for.

What you will do

• Draft routine correspondence for lawyer review: payment letters, request letters, and letters to clients, clinics, insurers and opposing counsel
• Write to clients to confirm and advise them of their medical assessments, setting out the date, time and location, what to bring, what will happen, and what to do if they cannot attend
• Follow up with clinics, hospitals and pharmacies on requested productions, including clinical notes and records, prescription records and OHIP summaries, by phone, fax and email until the records arrive
• Prepare and send records request letters, track what has been requested and what is still outstanding, and keep the productions list current on every file
• Open, organize and maintain accident benefits and tort files in both physical and electronic form
• Record every call, letter and follow-up on the file, so that anyone who picks it up can tell where it stands without asking you
• Provide general administrative support to the lawyers, including calendar management and scheduling
• Other day-to-day administrative and file tasks as they come up

What you bring

• Strong written and spoken English. This is the first thing we assess and the most important thing on this list. Your days are letters and phone calls: correspondence that goes out over the firm's name, and calls with clients, clinics, insurers and opposing counsel who need to understand you the first time
• At least one year of office work experience, in any industry. You know how an office runs: phones, email, filing, calendars, and following a process without being chased
• Comfort learning a new subject area. We will teach you the accident benefits process, the OCF forms and the LAT timelines, but you need to retain it and apply it
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office, particularly Word and Outlook
• Ability to manage a high volume of work, prioritize under deadline and keep accurate tickler and bring-forward systems
• A professional, calm manner on the phone and in writing with clients who are often injured, stressed and unfamiliar with the legal process
• Persistence on follow-up. A large part of this job is staying on adjusters, clinics and record departments who have not come back to you yet, and doing it without letting anything slip

Assets, not requirements

• Experience in a law firm, especially on plaintiff-side personal injury files
• A law clerk, paralegal or legal administration diploma from a recognized Ontario college
• Familiarity with Ontario personal injury practice, including the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule, the Licence Appeal Tribunal process and the Rules of Civil Procedure
• Exposure to OCF forms, medical records requests and the standard document flow of a motor vehicle accident file
• Experience with a legal practice management platform such as Clio or PCLaw
• Korean. A meaningful share of our personal injury clients are Korean-speaking, and an assistant who can speak with them directly is genuinely valuable to us. It is not a requirement and we do not weigh it above experience: the day-to-day file work, including clinics, insurers, assessment centres, opposing counsel and the courts, runs in English
• Any other language spoken in our client community, including Hebrew, Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish and Farsi
• Familiarity with CaseLines and Civil Submissions Online
• Exposure to long-term disability or slip and fall files alongside motor vehicle accident work

What we offer

• Salary of $42,000 to $47,500 per year, depending on experience
• Health Spending benefits after the probationary period
• Two weeks of paid vacation to start
• Paid Law Society and association fees where applicable, and support for continuing education
• Hands-on training on accident benefits and tort file management from the lawyers and clerks you work with
• Direct mentorship from the lawyers on your files and a clear path to a law clerk or senior file-management role
• Free parking on site and easy access by TTC (Finch West station)
• A collegial office where the partners know your name and your caseload

Vaturi & Cho LLP is an equal opportunity employer. Accommodations are available on request at every stage of the recruitment process in accordance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and the Ontario Human Rights Code.

This posting is for an existing vacancy. Artificial intelligence is not used to screen or assess applications.