Beth Hawkins
Secretarial Co-Ordinator - Commercial Disputes and Construction
Email: beth.hawkins@burges-salmon.com
My name is Beth Hawkins and I have worked for Burges Salmon for almost 17 years.
I was (just about!) still a teenager when I sent a letter and CV through to Burges Salmon's Personnel Department in July 1991. I was given an interview almost immediately and then offered employment working as a junior secretary in the Property Litigation Department (now called APLE). I felt at home as soon as I got here and my initial role was as a departmental floating secretary/back-up to one of the secretaries working for a Partner. Seven months after I joined Burges Salmon a vacancy came up to work for a lawyer whose secretary was due to commence maternity leave. I continued in this role for 7½ years. Whilst the lawyer involved made his way up from assistant solicitor to associate to partner my own role changed. I undertook more and more in-house training such as PowerPoint, Excel, Deltaview, Norwel Desktop, Printaform etc in order to keep up with every day tasks and to help work my way up through the Burges Salmon grading structure.
It was during the summer of 1999 that the opportunity arose for me to take a change of direction and become a departmental co-ordinator. In order to do this I had to give up working for my lawyer and join the team of 12 co-ordinators/deputy co-ordinators. I was used as a floating secretary again in order to ascertain what secretarial workloads were like within the department. 9 years down the line my role continues to change. I am now co-ordinator for CDC (Commercial Disputes and Construction) and have been in the department for the last 4½ years.
Although I still work for all lawyers within the department as and when necessary, I now help to train up new starters (who may not have had much legal experience) and junior secretaries (who sometimes come to Burges Salmon from college after undertaking work experience). This entails teaching them every day tasks, layouts of documents, policies and procedures. Therefore, I am continuing to learn to use new applications all the time, such as Digital Dictation, Efile etc. I experience a great sense of achievement when I hear that the secretaries involved are progressing well. Also as a co-ordinator I undertake secretarial appraisals within the department. This is done on a yearly basis in May, with mini-appraisals every November.
As well as hard work Burges Salmon also offers a wide range of social events including tickets to see pop groups, shopping trips to London etc. These are normally organised by the Social Club but there is a summer party every year and also departmental Christmas gatherings (including the Christmas "frenzy" – one not to be missed!).
- Joined in July 1991
- Worked for 7 months as departmental floater/back-up secretary
- Worked for 7½ years as secretary to lawyer who became Partner
- Completed numerous training courses
- Became co-ordinator in June 1999
- Undertake secretarial appraisals
- Train new/junior secretaries
- Moved departments in 2003
- Still a co-ordinator and still having lots of fun!