How paralegals helped the University of York complaints team

It was November 2022, and the University of York’s complaints team were facing an increased workload. Tom Richens (Deputy Head of Student Administration - Student and Academic Services) and Kathryn Lucas (Student Administration Manager – Complaints) were new to their roles, and found themselves inheriting a substantial backlog of complaints to process and resolve. Additionally the sector was facing strike action, with university staff engaged in industrial action prompting yet more student complaints.

The complaints backlog was already a big problem, and it was still growing. The implications for not addressing the issue were significant. Effective complaint handling is vital to the student experience at university. It provides organisational accountability and introspective prompts to review processes that perhaps aren’t working as well as they should. Without good complaints handling, a university suffers.

With a mounting caseload and an urgent need to get on top of the situation, Tom and Kathryn decided to temporarily increase the capacity of their team. Their hope was that by delegating high-volume casework investigation work away to interim staff, they could thereby free up their time to focus on compliance aspects of the backlog. To that end, they reached out to Flex Legal.

Why paralegals are perfect for complaints handling

If you are a legal professional reading through that list, there’s a good chance you will identify with the work involved in complaints handling. There is a very clear overlap with the skills involved in legal casework and complaints casework. This is precisely why the University of York decided to contact Flex, and employ the services of interim paralegals as opposed to more generalist admin professionals.

It takes 6 months on average for a complaints officer to become fully trained on all aspects of an organisation’s complaints process. Given the urgency of the problem they had inherited, fully training new junior colleagues was simply not an option for Tom and Kathryn. Recruiting paralegals with existing transferable skills, however, very much was. On the morning of November 4th, Tom filled out the Contact Form on Flex Legal’s website. A few hours later, he was on a Zoom call and speaking with Flex’s Client Services Team about the nature of the task at hand. The wheels were in motion.

Finding the perfect paralegals for job

We compiled a bespoke candidate shortlist and sent it Tom and Kathryn. The shortlist contained comprehensive online profiles of each paralegal, complete with CVs and self-filmed videos explaining a bit more about who they were and what kind of experience they were looking for. Tom and Kathryn decided to conduct their own interviews with each candidate, which was by no means a requirement but we were more than happy for them to do so.

After interviewing each paralegal, they were decidedly impressed with Susan Mobolaji and Cristina Boaghi, and felt they were the right fit for their team. Susan had previously qualified as a lawyer in Nigeria, before moving to the UK an obtaining a Master’s Degree in Law from the University of Hull. Cristina had previously worked as a Senior Legal Advisor in the Moldovan Parliament, a Deputy Minister in the Moldovan Ministry of Education, and earned her Master’s Degree in International and Institutional Law from the Free International University of Moldova before moving to the UK. Both were seasoned legal experts, who were drawn to Flex Legal by their shared interest in accruing more UK legal work experience.

How Susan and Cristina helped the University of York

Once Susan and Cristina had settled in, they got to work on the student complaints backlog. Each case was entirely unique and needed to be approached with nuance and consideration. One moment they could be contacting the originating department of a complaint for more information, the next they could be liaising with a student to keep them updated and provide them with timeframes for their complaint. It was a mixed bag of administrative and communication tasks, all falling under the overarching umbrella of their responsibility to take on time-consuming, high-volume tasks.

With the paralegals moving cases on at speed, the permanent complaints team were free to focus on more intricate and detailed work. Susan and Cristina also helped the team to prepare case summaries for when complaints needed to be escalated and considered by an academic registrar. As the paralegals continued to work in the complaints department, their skills developed and their relationship with the complaints team matured and their skills in research and dispute resolution blossomed.

In time, the complaints backlog was all but cleared. Susan and Cristina have now finished their placements, and the time of writing find themselves in new roles. Cristina is utilising the skills she refined at the University of York with her new position at the UK Home Office, and Susan is working with the renowned law firm Leigh Day.

Additional resources:

• Hire a Flex paralegal - If reading this case study has you scratching your chin, wondering if hiring a Flex paralegal is a good idea, then why not learn more? Click the link to get the ball rolling.
• How Saad went from Flex Paralegal to Flex Trainee - Paralegals working through Flex don’t stay that way forever. Some of them graduate onto the Flex Trainee scheme, just like Saad did. Read more!
• Apply to be a Flex paralegal - Are you interested in interim paralegal opportunities? Flex Legal is here for you! Submit your CV today and apply to the platform.