Job Description:
Due to a substantial increase in work, our Billing & Costing Department is looking to recruit a Legal Aid Billing Manager to work in our Billing team, which comprises staff based in our City office.
Main Responsibilities of the Role
- Overseeing the external draft persons and the outsourcing team who deal with the preparation of claim 1/Claim 1A bills and HCCP/CCFS plans
- Responsible for ensuring that CCMS notifications received after the bill/HCCP/CCFS is submitted and dealt with in a timely manner by the draftsmen and/or fee earner
- The firm’s branch in India manage logging the CCMS notifications for the draftsmen / fee earner to progress. Where these notification are not progressed they will be escalated to you
- Dealing with matters the draftsmen cannot deal with directly with the fee earner and or the Legal Aid Billing Team (LABT) at the firm’s India Branch
- Advising the firm’s India team relating to complicated matters
- Managing the turnaround of files being billed/progressed by external cost draftspersons
- Overseeing why bills/HCCP’s/CCFS are being rejected and implementing a strategy to manage rejections and investigating why the rejection has occurred. All rejections will be logged by India and dealt with by the draftsmen / fee earner when the rejection is received however you will be required to ensure that bills rejected are re submitted within prescribed time frames
- Ensuring that the firm can keep our rejections with the LAA as low as possible and liaising with external draftsmen/ their management to ensure rejections do not reoccur. You will also be responsible for communicating with the LAA where the reason for rejection is wrong
- The LABT India will be responsible for chasing fee earners for certificated files that have not moved for 3/4 months. You will be required to intervene where fee earners are not responding by liaising with fee earners/ Directors
- The LABT India will be responsible for chasing fee earners where certificated credit limits are close to being breached and or have been breached. You will be required to intervene where fee earners are not responding by liaising with fee earners and directors
- The LABT India will be responsible for liaising with fee earners where files have reached a certain limit to see if the matter will need to be registered as an hourly rate case plan. Any issues arising from this process will be escalated to you to intervene where fee earners are not responding by liaising with Directors
- In Children Law matters you will also be required to advise fee earners after the file reaches a certain level of WIP on advantages/disadvantages of registration under the events model ( CCFS) or to keep the file on hourly rates
- Creating training materials where adequate training does not exist
- Creating and providing periodically to the Board, management reports that will be system generated
- Attending regular meetings with the Board on billing and WIP reviews
- Provide training to new DL staff as part of induction or otherwise on existing billing process at DL:-
- Claim 1/1A checklist & completing the narrative with enhancement justification
- Regulation 5a training ( for Judicial review matters)
- Maximising costs in legal aid cases
- LAA rules on Disbursements
- Completing attendance notes
- HCCP checklist & registering your case as an hourly HCCP
- CCFS checklist- Events Model. Hourly rate
- Applying for extensions and extending credit limits on the case management system
This list is not exhaustive.
Key Skills Required:
- Drafts person with the technical knowledge
- Bill processing knowledge
- Good general IT skills, particularly
- Familiar with SRA guidelines
- Excellent attention to detail;
- Inquisitive and analytic mind-set;
- Exceptional oral and written communication skills;
- Ability to work under pressure; and
- Able to prioritise demands; excellent time management and organisational skills
The company will provide training within the department on processing the bills.
Rewards
- 20 days annual leave
- Additional Birthday leave
- Additional holiday accrual*
- Additional holiday accrual*
- Access to vast range of training webinars / E-Library
- Automatic enrolment onto the Company’s pension scheme
- Childcare Vouchers
- Eye test vouchers
- DBS Check costs paid for
- Excellent progression opportunities
- Supportive team environment
- Part time working
- Flexible working arrangements/ considered
- Support for appropriate legal awards/recognition
*terms and conditions apply
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