My Future Career Everest University Online My Future Career I have chosen a career as a paralegal. This is a field that I expect will be both challenging as well as professionally rewarding. As a paralegal, I will assist attorneys in the delivery of legal services (National Association of Legal Assistants, 2008). A career in paralegal studies is a prestigious, professional adventure and offers a wonderful opportunity while enhancing ones knowledge of the law and provides for challenges, growth and advancement. After conducting research on this career, I found paralegals have many responsibilities in the legal world. Many of them I was unaware of until this research. Paralegals …show more content…
Each state's regulations are unique and employers' requirements vary widely due to the many kinds of work that paralegals can do (National Federation of Paralegal Associations, 2012). It takes a lot of hard work and really knowing your legalese to be a great paralegal, and I am going to study very hard to get there. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of paralegals and legal assistants is projected to grow 22 percent between 2006 and 2016, much faster than the average for all occupations (National Association of Legal Assistants, 2008). Private law firms continue to be the single largest employer of paralegals, good job opportunities also exist in several other markets in both the private and public sectors. In addition to private law firms, other organizations in the private sector employ paralegals (American Bar Association, 2011). Some examples include corporate legal departments, insurance companies, estate and trust departments of large banks, hospitals and health care organizations, real estate and title insurance companies, and professional trade associations. Earnings vary considerably depending upon such factors as size of the community, geographical location, and size of the firm, nature of the legal practice, and the paralegal's educational background and work
Did you know that at present, there is only one lawyer for every 247 Americans in the Unites States? A lawyer is “a person trained in the legal profession who acts for and advises clients or pleads in court” (Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus). According to about careers, there are many different types of lawyers, among the top five highest paying legal professionals around the globe are trial lawyers. The first lawyers, also known as the “Gilded Lawyers” arranged the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the early 1930s (“National Lawyers Guild). The actions the Gilded Lawyers made gave them useful experience for defending the rights given to us by the First Amendment and suffused the work of the business in later years. Today, trial lawyers must meet specific job requirements and qualifications such as working under stressful conditions for long periods of time, making a profitable salary, and keeping up with the ever changing future needs for the career.
For example many paralegals case research, manage cases and assist with clients. The paralegal must abide by the same client attorney confidentiality. Paralegal must be supervised by an attorney and must abide by limitations
The typical tasks that a paralegal performs in this area of law are to assist the attorney with the client’s case. The paralegal job is to initiate initial interviews with potential clients, draft legal documents for the attorney, analyze the civil right issue that concerns the client and was presented by the client, to do investigations, do extensive legal research, review documents given by the client and assist with trial preparation ( American). Paralegals are a very important asset to the attorney because they perform a lot of tasks that they would have to typically do. They are in charge of contacting court personnel, interview witnesses that can be a asset to the case. Government paralegals have the same tasks and additional tasks depending on the issue. They usually help identify the solve discrimination complaints that are concentrated on sex, race and age. This claims were made by government employees against the government. Paralegals help government attorneys with discrimination litigation complaints that were brought by citizens against the government other American citizens, companies and other specific business
In addition, to the foregoing, paralegals work for a government branch or agency (the Department of Justice is the largest employer of paralegals, following by the Social Security Administration and the Department of Treasury) (Internships Through Employment, The Paralegal Job Hunter’s Handbook). Paralegals work in Human Resources (“HR”). HR issues are intertwined with legal issues (Internships Through Employment, The Paralegal Job Hunter’s Handbook). Working as a Librarian is another option. Law librarians are employed by law schools, private law firms, and government agencies (Internships Through Employment, The Paralegal Job Hunter’s Handbook). There are also criminal law opportunities. Paralegals work as probation officers, social welfare caseworkers, and child advocates in abuse and juvenile justice cases (Internships Through Employment, The Paralegal Job Hunter’s Handbook). Paralegals are also employed by federal and state courts as court clerks, assistant law librarians, court officers, court administrators, case specialists, and records technicians (Internships Through Employment, The Paralegal Job Hunter’s Handbook).
The paralegals in this field, as with most, will be involved in a wide variety of job responsibilities. Preparing documents for the client and the attorney, after gathering the necessary and important information is to assemble the information in an order and prepare the court documents needed to file. Paralegals will also maintain case files, petition for a list of a client’s personal property and assets and gather all the banking account information that a client has.
The demand for paralegal services has grown tremendously in the past few years. Many companies nowadays look to hire paralegals in preference to lawyers as a means of reducing costs. If you are looking to become a paralegal you can be assured that a bright career awaits you. But, the question that now arises is how to become a paralegal?
A Paralegal is a person, qualified through education, training, or work experience to perform substantive legal work that requires knowledge of legal concepts and is customarily, but not exclusively, performed by a lawyer. This person may be retained or employed by a lawyer, law office, governmental agency or other entity or may be authorized by administrative, statutory or court authority to perform this work. Substantive shall mean work requiring recognition, evaluation, organization, analysis, and communication of relevant facts and legal concepts.
Paralegals are the fore front of the legal office. They need to have technology skills on many different levels. For example they must know basic knowledge in Microsoft office, Open office and Google docs. Although “being proficient in programs other Than those used in the office is a great advantage when you are sent files with different file types created with different systems.” (Houghton 2017, Word Processing, Spreadsheets, and Presentation Software. Para 1)
Paralegals are an essential element if a successful civil litigation team, demonstrated by performing many invaluable services for their supervising attorney, insuring a seamless litigation process from start to finish. Typical assignments consist of investigations, drafting pleadings for the attorney's approval, assisting with discovery, tracking pre-trial litigations, assisting the supervising attorney with the trial, drafting settlement documents for the attorney's approval, and assisting with the appeals process if necessary. Another duty typically given to the paralegal, is the being the main contact point for the clients.
Paralegals need skills such as the ability to communicate, draft error-free documents, and manage their time well but are also required to take up case assessment tasks like client and witness interviews, gathering facts, carrying out research, and getting documents in place.
As a Paralegal professional the area of law that most interests me to work in is civil litigation and I would prefer to work the plaintiff side. For one,I have been giving a great deal as to where I want to start my career. Civil Litigation seems very exciting to me. I would like to think it is an exciting and rewarding career where you become the client's closest advocate while working with them on their legal matters. As a paralegal part of my job would be to conduct initial client interviews and participate in case analysis.
A civil litigation and paralegal will work closely with attorneys and will need to be able to perform various tasks. Since, they have to do so much, civil litigation paralegals need a certain set of skills.
Becoming a paralegal is an occupation I’m currently interested in, and will be the career that I’ll achieve best in. To pursue as a paralegal, I will be attending Georgia State University and hold a bachelor in business administration within the five years. "Most" companies require you either be a certified paralegal, or hold a bachelor’s degree in business administration, finance, management, etc. or have at least 2 years of experience in legal experience. Afterwords, I would complete (American Bar Association) being approved as a paralegal training (associates degree in paralegal studies) which the job environment and some job duties of a corporate paralegal differs from a paralegal at a law
To become a paralegal is the step to re-enter in the field of law, and at this stage of my life, it’s an opportunity to grab on. Coming from the other corner of the world with my bachelor’s degree in law at one hand and leaving behind my work experience, my extended family and my friends, here I am with my husband and my super active toddler to an entirely new country exited to continue my passion and fascination for the subject of law.
The purpose of this memorandum is to go into detail about the legal career path of being a lawyer. Within this memo, you will find information regarding the preparation for a career as a lawyer, such as the necessary degrees and skills, as well as information on the general outlook for this job, such as expect salary, and where most of the jobs in this field are located. Finally, the memorandum will discuss how occupational research for being an attorney helped tailor my resume and cover letter to specific job postings in the field.