mint e news

HI everyone!

I’m five days into my placement at Minter Ellison and so far it has all been very full on and I am amazed at how much I have learnt in just a short time!

I have been working mostly under the event coordinator; Haley as well as the brand and communications coordinator; Nancy and their two assistants. Both ladies have very demanding jobs which sees them doing a lot of extra hours –demonstrating their commitment and dedication as well as the continued enthusiasm to ensure each event is a success.

Minter Ellison is an international law firm and employees nearly 200 people in its Perth office. With 7 legal divisions they host an average of four events a week –sometimes even more. With events being held in house, about fifty per cent of the time. The genre of events varies from breakfasts to seminars to hosting events for clients, on behalf of companies or projects they sponsor, for potential clients, to network and so forth. I have learnt a lot about the key to building relationships with suppliers –including caterers, flower companies and hirers. The importance and preparation surrounding the event is crucial with a high reliance on databases to quickly update rsvps, dietary requirements and is useful for making any relevant notes.

The type of event will decided what type of invite is sent, but the first point of contact is normally via phone if the event is small. All invites, confirmations and reminders are sent electronically, keeping in line with the firm’s environmental policy. Thus the majority of rsvps are emailed back into the Perth rsvp inbox, which has been left to me to filter.

There is always the fun side to events and I particularly enjoyed sourcing and ordering a promotional desert for a function that the firm was sponsoring. But there is also those time consuming jobs which include things like putting together event information packs and making name tags –all of which are the fine but essential details in making the event a success.

I have also being taking care of admin type roles for the department including invoices, for; events, sponsorships and memberships and completing mail merges to send out requested hard copies of certain department newsletters to clients.

It’s refreshing to see and hear the marketing manager, Katrina talk about how much support the team gets from the partners and their continued understanding of how important the business development and marketing work is and what role it plays in filtering throughout the organisation. Each law division is overtly keen to host as many functions possible (within their allocated budget), publish fortnightly or monthly newsletters, create advertisements and so forth for the benefit of their clients and to inform fellow employees internally. That has been another big thing I have enjoyed experiencing – the level and importance of internal employee communication.

With seven people heading up the marketing team I have been exposed to everyone’s roles in some way already. My next blog will look at the role the team plays in applying for and submitting tenders and as I mentioned just before the importance of efficient employee communication.

Jaleesa