Paralegal Work: in today’s workplace, terminology often changes and the terms themselves and what they are associated with can become confusing. The legal field is prime example of this. Terms such as paralegal, legal assistant, and legal secretary are used on a regular basis. This can become confusing if you have had little to do with the legal profession in the past.
What Paralegal Work Isn’t: A legal secretary is precisely that – a secretary that works in a law firm. Like most secretarial duties, their role is clerical by nature and generally involves typing letters and related legal documents. Legal secretaries often have specialized training since many of the legal documents require specifics layouts.
What Paralegal Work Is: the term legal paralegal has come to replace what was in the past a legal assistant. In years gone by, legal assistants were often those still studying law, had failed or dropped out of law school, or were considering a career in law.
These days, paralegal work has become a specialized role in itself. The duties of paralegal often involve interviewing witnesses, researching, and filing legal documents at court houses (as against the clerical duty of filing documents in a filing cabinet).
Because a paralegal is involved more intricately in the legal side of things, they require specialized training. This training involves legal aspects, for example, the form, nature and legal processes involved with interviewing witnesses.
Paralegal work can include:
- paralegal work in real estate law
- paralegal work in family law
- entry level paralegal work
- part time paralegal work
- immigration paralegal work
In today’s world, the role of paralegal is quite often filled by men. While there are still more women paralegals, many men have also found this field to be both professionally and personally rewarding. Although there were very few male legal secretaries in the past, the widening role and opportunities for paralegals have led many men to find this line of work to be quite appealing.
In short, a paralegal is a professional in the law office or other business where he or she works. The paralegal has a distinct role, and the qualifications necessary to be effective in that role.
Check other pages on approved Paralegal Programs for information related to:
- paralegal programs,
- paralegal careers,
- paralegal courses, and
- paralegal jobs.
