Commercial Litigation Adviser
Centrica
Total years of experience :16 years, 5 Months
• Working closely with a team of commercial solicitors at Shoosmiths solicitors - A National Law firm ranked in the top 30 in the UK in order to collect debt owed to British Gas through negotiation, mediation and as a last resort, litigation
• Managing corporate relationships with partners and associates at Shoosmiths and improving B2B processes with the goal of significantly reducing debt owed to British Gas
• Leading weekly teleconferences enabling open and honest communication between the solicitors at Shoosmiths and litigation advisors at British Gas in order to progress pressing issues
• Monitoring weekly performance of Shoosmiths solicitors and ensuring challenging annual collection targets are met
• Ensuring that business costs and disbursements are kept to a minimum
• Representing British Gas during negotiations with customers and during mediation meetings with solicitors from the opposing party
• Appearing at Court hearings and at trial as a witness for British Gas
• Managing an onshore team of 12 and an offshore team in Delhi, India of 5 employees
• Working with 10 external agencies in order to recover aged debt owed to British Gas
• Liaising with external agents on a number of levels - face to face, video and teleconferencing and at meetings
• Strategically deciding how to maximise performance by using a variety of collection techniques and by continuously monitoring referral data sent to the external agents
• Providing support to team members through training, coaching and feedback
• Ensuring support to the external agents was to the highest standard by continually quality monitoring the work of my team
• Providing certified face to face advice following the completion of a rigorous training course
• Offering guidance to clients that had to be free, independent, confidential and impartial
• Preliminary advice to clients included issues such as boundary disputes, debt, benefits and employment
• Maintaining client confidentiality and professionalism
• Helping clients to prioritise their debt problems by separating secured and unsecured debt
• Providing information to clients on a range of benefits that they would be entitled to and assisting clients with form filling, for example, to claim for welfare benefits
• Typing letters or phoning companies and service providers on behalf of clients in order to resolve the clients issues
• Raising awareness and the aspirations of school children about the different options available to them from the age of 16
• Producing imaginative classroom activities which developed the knowledge of working in a commercial environment
• Improving the performance of children in order to enhance further education and career prospects
• Helping to increase achievement levels