Comments on: What exactly is a Legal Assistant? And what education do you have to have?

By: V.T.V.RAM

V.T.V.RAM — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:16:26 +0000

“A legal assistant or paralegal is a person qualified by education, training or work experience who is employed or retained by a lawyer, law office, corporation, governmental agency or other entity who performs specifically delegated substantive legal work for which a lawyer is responsible.”
There is no specific educational requirement in most U.S. states for legal assistants or paralegals. Some paralegals have only on-the-job experience, while some paralegals have completed a two-year course or bachelor’s degree in paralegal studies. Others have completed a bachelor’s or even a master’s degree in another field, and quite a few of these people have also completed a regular or post-baccalaureate paralegal certificate.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the average annual salary for paralegals was $45,460 as of May 2006. The lowest paid 10 percent earned less than $27,450 annually, while the highest 10 percent earned more than $67,540

By: SaJo

SaJo — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 18:17:15 +0000

There is no specified education that you need to be a legal assitant, some firms will hire people without a degree and some prefer those with a bachelors degree. They will be more concerned with your experience, typing skills, proofreading skills, etc.

Legal assistants are ofen assigned to an attorney (or 2 or 3) and they provide all the administrative work for that attorney. This means sending out e-mails, typing briefs, memos, agreements, and other legal documents. They also do a lot of proofreading and make sure that everything sent out in that attorney’s name is perfect. You open new matters and make sure that the attorney’s files are organized and complete. You sometimes will have to answer that attorney’s phone and make appointments for meetings, lunch outings, business trips, etc. The job can be very difficult and also easy becuase it all depends on the attorney’s that you end up working for, some are very needy and some are very independant.

They can make anywhere from $30-90k depending on what city you are in and what firm you work at (the biggest corporate firms in cities like New York and DC will probably pay the most) and there is lots of opportunity to work up to being a paralegal.

Look into intellectual property law and litigation, those are the fields that it seems have the most job openings for legal assistants. You may have to start with another type of position in a law firm and work you way up if you don’t have a lot of experience, but there are some firms that are looking for entry level candidates to train. It’s a good field to look into! Good Luck!

By: skylar

skylar — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 04:24:56 +0000

Ooo I am a legal assistant! I did online course for Law Clerk, you can do this at college or night school, but I needed to work as well. It took two years to finish.
You fill out and file legal documents(depends on the type of law) I do responses, DFR’s, S. 49’s, S.48’s, these are all labour forms, type letters, open files, do accounts, set up mediation dates, correspondence, file organization.. It can be different depending on the area of law. Real estate and estates are quite unique. I work in Labour Law.
This is my second job, I have been at it for over a year and I make 40,000 because of the city I work in.
I like it a lot and there is lots of room for me to move up make more and become a clerk instead of assistant.
Good luck