Legal Aid Billing & Compliance Lead - #2158982

Up to £50k - dependant on experience

Based in Manchester / Hybrid

Full-time, Monday-Friday

We're working with a leading multi-office law firm who are looking to recruit a Legal Aid Billing & Compliance Lead to join their Finance team in Manchester.

This is a specialist SME role, providing technical ownership of legal aid billing, payments on account and LAA compliance across a large civil and crime practice. Working alongside the Billing Manager, you'll provide the technical legal aid expertise across the billing function, while helping improve billing turnaround, cash collection and compliance.

The firm has a substantial legal aid operation, including over 1,000 live certificated civil cases, with a billing team made up of costs draftsmen, legal cashiers and administrators.

The role would suit an experienced legal aid billing professional who has already operated at a similar level within a sizeable legal aid practice and can demonstrate measurable improvements they have delivered.

Responsibilities include:

• Overseeing civil final bills from case conclusion through to payment, ensuring bills are drafted, approved and submitted through CCMS promptly
• Managing the payments on account process across certificated cases, including monitoring when payments are due and ensuring claims are submitted on time
• Ensuring disbursements are claimed from the LAA promptly and paid to suppliers within the SRA 14-day requirement
• Monitoring monthly controlled work submissions, including Legal Help and crime lower, alongside Legal Help escape claims
• Reviewing LAA assessments and reductions and supporting appeals where appropriate
• Managing relationships with external costs drafting firms, setting turnaround targets and helping bring routine drafting in-house
• Acting as the firm's technical point of contact for legal aid billing and compliance queries
• Preparing for and supporting LAA contract audits across civil and crime work
• Ensuring matters are opened under the correct contract branch and resolving any errors
• Managing statutory charge cases, recoupments, inactive case reviews, contingent liability contracts and out-of-time bills
• Managing LAA file transfers, including bulk transfers through the contract manager
• Supporting billing on Very High Cost Cases and case plans
• Maintaining legal aid supervision records
• Producing monthly management information covering fees, cash, live matters and WIP
• Providing weekly reporting to partners and the Head of Finance on LAA remittances and expected income
• Reviewing matter balance reports, including office credits, client balances and files ready to close
• Maintaining aged debtor information and supporting the development of credit control processes
• Working with the Billing Manager to allocate work, set turnaround targets and run regular billing meetings
• Training and supporting costs draftsmen, cashiers and administrators on legal aid billing requirements
• Advising fee earners on billing requirements, including time recording, FAS, POA requests and bill instructions
• Developing and maintaining clear procedures covering billing, POAs, new matters, leavers and file closure
• Helping to clear historic billing backlogs and aged balances
• Identifying opportunities to improve billing processes and make greater use of the firm's case management and accounts systems

What we need from you:

• Previous experience leading legal aid billing within a law firm
• Experience using CCMS and CWA
• Strong Excel skills and confidence working with billing and financial data
• Evidence of measurable improvements delivered in a previous legal aid billing role

The perks:

• Salary up to £50,000 per annum, depending on experience
• Monday-Friday, full-time hours
• Hybrid working
• 26 days annual leave plus Bank Holidays
• Birthday Day off after one year's service
• Medicash Health Plan
• Standard NEST workplace pension scheme
• Training and development opportunities
• Annual appraisal
• Technical ownership of legal aid billing and compliance across a large multi-office law firm
• Senior-level exposure to the Head of Finance, partners and fee-earning teams
• Scope to improve billing processes, cash collection and legal aid compliance across the business

If you're interested, then hit that apply button or reach out to Jack Lloyd directly on [email protected].